Growing Pains
by SiwaPyra
Summary: An AU in the ME-universe, Teenage Shepard leaves Earth for another planet to attend school at the Normandy Academy. After one of the hardest years of her life, she is ready to hopefully take new steps towards a better future. A story of her life after the shock of loss and the discovery of new friends... and love? (Eventual FShep/Liara)
1. Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones

_A/N - I've written a lot in many other places in my life, but this is my first on this website, so I'm excited :) This is an AU story set in the Mass Effect universe but not really in its timeline. It's set sort of in a time post-Reapers but without the Reapers (if that makes sense). The galaxy is unified but not because of the impending doom of total obliteration. All the wars and conflicts between species still happened, but they've been resolved by this point, by someone some time or another._

_An HS story, but not how you'd typically think it'd be. This won't be the sterotypical 'everything goes right for the hero' story, my Shep won't get it that easy haha. You'll see pretty much all the characters from the games at some point scattered throughout the story, but maybe not how you would expect them to be in the game._

_One other big note. Trying to convert all the ages of the different races into a working equivalent is really hard and I would say nearly impossible, but I'm going to try. For the asari and krogan, I am going to try and make their longevity as adaptable as possible. All the adult asari characters will be close to their ages in the games, however the ones who are teenagers will be the same age as the other races, but with 40 or so years tacked on. Their ages are seriously a pain in the butt, but I'm going to try and work with it (aka mention it as little as possible so as not to piss anyone off haha). This won't come up until much farther down the line anyway._

_Sorry if that got long, just don't want anyone left confused or riding the struggle bus. If anyone has any other questions feel free to ask me to explain anything. Enjoy the ride, ladies and gents, and leave a review if you feel a hankarin' to, otherwise, hope you like Growing Pains! ;)_

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Chapter 1 - Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones

Hospitals had always freaked her out. She knew the uncomfortable feeling that the atmosphere created was common enough amongst a lot of people. The utilitarian white walls, gleaming stainless steel, and cloying scent of antiseptic in the air all combined to unsettle her. She hadn't spent all that much time in them, but the few times she had were ingrained into her memory. And not many people would say that they had pleasant experiences in hospitals.

Once when she was little, probably around 3 or 4, she had been goofing around in the back yard with their family dog, Koda. They were never really sure what kind of canine breed he had been since he was a stray when they had found him as a puppy, with no tags on him. The people at the vets office hadn't really known either, they just speculated and named out a few breeds he could have been. He grew into a huge animal, but he was infinitely patient with the little child that always crawled all over him. And that was one such crawling time. She had always wanted to crawl on his back and ride him around like a pony, despite the fact that her parents constantly told her not to.

At the time, her parents had been somewhere back in the house, trusting Koda to keep an eye out, and she took full advantage of the situation. She hooked her little arms around Koda's neck and hoisted one stubby leg as far as it could go to latch onto his back. Keeping a firm grip around his neck, she pulled her body up all the way onto his back. She sat there for a few moments almost in shock that she had finally climbed on his furry back. She was so delighted that she had finally gotten her wish that she released her hands from his neck scruff to clap triumphantly. But the motion disrupted the precarious balance that she had on his back and she felt herself slip off.

Instinctively, she shot her arms out to brace her body for the impact. As her body collided with the ground, her little left wrist took almost all of the force of the fall. She cried out painfully and cradled her arm to her body as she curled up on the grass crying. Along with being extremely patient, Koda was also incredibly in tune to the emotions of his human family. Licking her face quickly and whining, he loped to the back door of the house and scratched on the glass. He barked out a couple of deep bass howls to get the attention of the parents in the house.

Her parents had come out to find her on the ground holding a swollen wrist and tears streaming down her face. They knew Koda wouldn't have hurt her, so when they asked her what had happened, and had seen the slightly guilty look in her eyes, despite the tears falling out of them, they deduced what had occurred.

It ended up only being a slight fracture in a couple of her wrist bones instead of a full break, but she still had to sit in the hospital for hours while the bone regeneration casing was working. She remembered having to sit in the hospital for a long time because a hurt wrist wasn't high on the priority list in the ER. It had been cold and her wrist had been killing her. And when the nurses finally got to her, they apathetically poked, prodded, and scanned her wrist, not paying any heed to the whimpers of the little girl.

That had been her first, but certainly not last, experience with hospitals and the pain they represented. When she was 8, she and some of her friends from her street had been playing around on their hoverboards in front of their houses. She hadn't had hers as long as some of the other kids and, while she had gotten the hang of it, she hadn't completely mastered it.

She had seen her friend Matthias doing complicated tricks with his board and wanted to try some for herself. She watched him execute the tricks a few more times before she felt like she could replicate it herself. Gaining some speed, she hooked her foot under her board like she saw him do and attempted to jump up and flip the board completely around under her. But she hadn't been able to untangle her foot quickly enough and it twisted her feet up beneath her and sent her careening off the board.

The concussion she had gotten from that fall had been a doozy. One of the kids had seen her fall and ran and got her parents. Matthias quickly filled them in on what had happened as they loaded her into the skycar to take her to the hospital. She had fallen and smacked her head on the rough concrete curb of the street, giving her a deep gash on her cheek and road-burn all along her forehead.

Spilling blood bumped her up the list to a slightly higher priority level than her last visit to the hospital, but she still had to wait awhile. The pounding in her head was compounded by the bright fluorescent lights in the ER waiting room, and the rashes and cut on her face had burned from the cool air-conditioning.

When they sealed up her face with medi-gel stitches and thoroughly disinfected her burn with strong chemicals, she had to grit her teeth to keep from crying. And even when the stinging from her face wounds had calmed down after a few days, her concussion continued to give her terrible headaches for a few weeks.

Just a year and a half ago she had taken her next trip to the emergency room. She had grown up to love the outdoors, and any chance she got she participated in as many activities and outdoor sports as she could. In middle school she played in a lot of the common known Earth sports, but when she heard about the popular galactic sport of skyball, she became hooked. She always bugged her parents to let her watch the games on the extranet and familiarized herself with the rules and strategies of the game. She joined up and started playing on a local junior league, quickly becoming quite skilled at the game herself.

There were very tight regulations for the sport at any level below professional. Even then though, her parents had not been thrilled that she took such an interest in the game. Skyball could get very intense, and, while not life threatening (most of the time), skyball had a very high injury rate even for those who played in the professional leagues. While the hoverboards went nowhere near as high or fast as they did in the higher levels, the junior league games still allowed players to go upwards of ten feet off the ground.

The day she got hurt she had been in a huge tournament with her team, and they were about to be pitted against one of their rivals. She had been looking forward to the game all week and was ecstatic when her coach told her she was going to get to start. She chewed on her mouth guard nervously and fidgeted with all her pads while she waited for the official to blow the starting whistle.

The game had been intense right from the start. Both teams were very talented, and both teams desperately wanted to beat the other. And while there were no blatant fouls, the team members from both teams had been hitting and colliding with each other roughly for the whole game. She had been playing one of her best games to date, dipping and dodging players from the other team left and right. She even scored a few points herself.

At half time her team was barely beating the other team. And while their coach was encouraging them and telling them to keep up their hard work, she knew the coach from the other team was lighting a fire in the other players as well. It was hard to keep a lead after half time when the opposing team had time to rest and regroup.

Right from the whistle the other team came at them harder than ever. The foul calls reflected it for both teams. Her team was getting angry and riled up from being beaten on and they were starting to lose their temper. Earlier, she had juked one of the other teams players and caused them to collide with one of their own teammates. She could tell the other boy had been seriously pissed when she did that, and was just looking for an opportunity to get back at her.

And it arose when she had the ball and was headed to score. He came out of nowhere, roaring into her field of vision at neck breaking speed. She thought he was just going to completely slam into her so she had frantically leaned forward to try and dodge the brunt of the hit. What she didn't realize was that he wasn't planning on body slamming her, and her motion forward actually helped with what he had been about to do.

He swerved at the last possible second and clipped the back of her board. Hard. Her forward momentum completely threw off her balance and the sudden jerk of the board beneath her undid the footing she had on its surface. While she hadn't been ten feet off the ground, the eight foot drop that she took was still enough to hurt her how it did.

She felt herself go over the edge of the board and plummet to the ground below her. The twisting of the board also meant that she fell at an awkward angle: Instead of landing on her back, she fell on her shoulder. She felt a sickening crunch when her body crashed into the ground and the searing, burning pain that follows the severing of nerves along bone. She had even blacked out for a few seconds from the pain.

With her left side underneath her and the weight of her body pressing down on the broken bone, she was desperate to try and relieve some pain. She tried to roll onto her back to remove some of the pressure, and as she rolled she felt broken bones grind across each other. She was pretty sure at that point she spat out many colorful profanities that would have put a soldier to shame but she didn't really remember all that well. By then her coach and the medic had made it to her side, as well as some of her team mates. She remembered them all gasping and muttering and having sickened looks on their faces.

Stupidly, she had looked down, and she realized what was making them contort their faces so much. You could see the gleaming white tip of part of her collar bone poking up through her skin, its jagged edges having sliced right through thin muscle and skin. Her stomach heaved and she tried to turn her head enough to allow the vomit propelled up her esophagus to splash harmlessly to the side. The motion had sent another burn of pain radiating down her upper body.

The trip to the hospital that time had been a blur as her body had quickly gone into shock. The chills that broke out over her body, the sweat that had cooled on her uniform, and the cold air in the ER waiting room all combined to make her incredibly cold. A blanket had been draped over her to try and warm her up as she sat in the hover chair she had been put into upon arriving at the hospital.

Thankfully, even though it had hurt worse than all her other trips to the hospital combined, her condition that day put her almost at the top of the waiting list in the waiting room. Only those with life threatening injuries were seen before her.

They had to do surgery in order to slide her clavicle back inside her body and get it repositioned so it would heal correctly. Mercifully, the anesthetic rolled over her quickly and allowed her oblivion from the pain for a short while. She woke foggily later, her mouth feeling like it was full of cotton and a dull burning in her upper left torso.

She learned that they had put synthetic pins and screws into her collarbone to fuse the broken ends together. A conventional bone regenerating case wouldn't have worked because of the awkward area in the body that the bone was in. They would have had to somehow encase her entire upper body to knit it back together. So, they had to pull a bit of a 21st century medical move and pin her bones back together. They also gave her a sort of figure-eight brace that wrapped around her shoulders and back to keep her in perfect posture to allow the bones to knit back together correctly. Thankfully though, recovering from a broken collarbone took nowhere near as long as it had back then. What once had taken almost 3 months for some people, was reduced to just shy of a month in modern times.

However, since they had been nearing the end of their skyball season, she had thankfully only missed out on the last few weeks of it. When the doctors had been happy enough with the progress of her bone growing back together correctly, and in the right alignment, they did another quick surgery to remove the synthetic screws and pins. They shot some bone and muscle cell stimulants into the area and allowed the rest to heal back together naturally.

All in all, her visits to hospitals had not left her with fond memories. A hospital stood as a reminder of pain, sadness, and suffering. Sure, babies were born in hospitals - the joy of new life being brought into the world, but more often than not, people died in hospitals. When the word is spoken, thoughts of sickness and pain usually rush to the forefront of people's minds.

Some part of her knew that it was slightly unfair to dislike hospitals so much. True, a lot of pain happened there, but everyone who worked in them struggled tirelessly day and night to help relieve that pain as well. And for her, they had. She always came out of them much better than she had gone in, and she always came out knowing she was eventually going to be okay.

But not this time.

She sat yet again in another hospital waiting room, the memories of her time spent in places like these washing over her. But the pain associated with those times couldn't quite seem to touch her at that moment. The pain she was feeling now was nothing compared to what she had felt then. She wished she could feel all of those injuries at the same time instead of the shattering pain she was feeling now in her body.

She almost couldn't wrap her mind about what was happening. _How is this fair? How can anyone be expected to bear this pain..._

She sat yet again in another hospital waiting room, but this time, she wasn't the one about to be scanned or stitched up or operated on.

She sat yet again in another hospital waiting room because her mother was dying.


	2. Don't Count the Years Count the Memories

Chapter 2 - Don't Count the Years, Count the Memories

"Mr. Shepard?" a voice rang out into the quiet waiting room. The voice woke her from the light doze she had been in and she lifted her head and knuckled some sleep out of her eyes. She looked over at her dad sitting in the seat across from her as he reacted to his name being called. The voice belonged to a doctor who had just come through from some doors that divided the waiting room and the back rooms.

Her dad wordlessly got up and walked over to the doctor, his head drooping slightly. _He's so tired..._ she thought. She herself wasn't in much better shape. The last few weeks had been brutal for her family; the constant trips to the hospital and the ominous looming of her mother's sickness had drained them.

As long as she could remember, Hannah Shepard had been strong and healthy. Whenever her dad or her would get sick, her mom would always be taking care of them, never giving a thought that she might get sick from them. She had occasionally gotten the seasonal bugs that everyone got, but for the most part, Hannah's immune system had kept her from ever getting really sick.

But no matter how good your immune system is, if you get cancer cells, it's bad news. And unfortunately their current situation wasn't so different from a lot of people's. Almost everyone who was ever exposed to element zero had some sort of side effects. Even the ones that didn't die or get cancer came out changed. If there were no outward symptoms or cancerous cells there was a different side effect: Biotics.

When her mom had been pregnant with her, an eezo refining factory near their city had experienced some kind of malfunction in its reactor core and there had been a large explosion. Even though all element zero plants had to be kept at a minimum of 20 miles from any cities, the radiation that had ensued from the blast had been picked up by the winds and rolled through the city.

As soon as the malfunction had been detected, people had started to evacuate as a precaution. Thankfully, the explosion in the factory hadn't occurred until a few hours after the plant operators had called in the problems. Her father was a very protective man, and wasted no time getting his family out of the city when the warning had been announced. They had been miles away by the time the explosion had happened and thought they had completely escaped the radiation blast as well.

When she had been born there were no complications. The doctors told Hannah that her pregnancy and her daughter's birth had been one of the most perfect and healthiest ones they had ever seen. When her mom and dad held their new daughter in their arms and she had no tumors, no deformities, and had all the right bits and pieces, they thought they had been in the clear. To be safe though, they relocated cities, making sure they were as far away from any element zero plants as possible.

For a few years everything had been almost perfect for the Shepard family. Jake Shepard had a beautiful and amazing wife, and a bubbly healthy little girl. As is true for any child however, she had given her parents fits at times. She would constantly wake them up in the middle of the night - she would sleep just long enough for them to pass into sleep, and then she would abruptly wake them with her cries. She had a habit of always making an absolute mess at dinner time because she had some fascination with throwing food. She was also insatiably curious. As soon as she started crawling, she had constantly gotten into things she shouldn't have.

The Shepard family's bubble of perfection had been shattered though, when their daughter began to show signs that she had, in fact, been tainted by the eezo explosion years before.

-.-.-.-.-

When she was 5 she started kindergarten, and she thought her little five year old heart was going to burst from happiness. She took everything in stride, her curious nature running rampant as she absorbed everything around her that day. The building had only been a few blocks from her house, and both her parents walked her there on her first day of school. Her dad had been able to get the morning off work in order to go too. When she first saw the school she thought it was the prettiest building she had ever seen. It was made from beautiful red brick and had thick, lush flower gardens lining the base of the entire building. The windows gleamed in the sunlight and the lawn in the front had been perfectly manicured. The trees were full of bright green leaves and swayed peacefully in the light morning breeze.

The inside had been just as lovely as the outside. The walls were painted warm friendly colors and bright, multicolored posters hung from doors and bulletin boards. The classrooms were filled with cute chairs and tables that rested on top of fun carpets. She thought she had died and gone to child heaven.

She got to the school with her parents and had been extremely eager to start her first day. She had noticed that a lot of the other kids cried and refused to let go of their parents, but not her. She wasn't absolutely thrilled to see them leave, for this would be her first day not spending all of it with one or both of them, but she didn't cling to them sobbing like some children. She was excited to start this new journey in her life.

All the kids were directed to their classrooms in order to meet their teachers and the rest of the students that would be with them for the year. In order to help the kids remember their classmates, teachers and rooms, each kindergarten class was assigned a different animal from Earth. So every door had its respective animal hanging on the front so that the kids could learn to remember where their class was. Her class mascot was a whale.

The day had started off beautifully. Her teacher was a kind, older man who had salt and pepper hair and gentle eyes. His name was Mr. Johnson and she thought he was the best teacher ever. They went around the room and all the little kids said their names and what they wanted to be when they grew up. There were only about 15 kids in her class and she was able to put names to faces pretty quickly, even at a young age.

She was excited when it was her turn to introduce herself. Her whole life (granted, it was only 5 years long) she had wanted to explore the stars. Because of her curious nature, she loved looking up into the stars every night, envisioning the adventures she could have. She knew that there were numerous other worlds up there, and one day she wanted fly into the stars and live amongst them.

So she introduced herself and blurted out, "I want explore the stars!" The other little kids had said more generic (boring, in her opinion) job occupations and they thought she was crazy for wanting to leave Earth. There had been one other girl in her class though, who had been ambitious as well in want she wanted from life. She wanted to study aliens and learn about their cultures. That girl hadn't seemed as boring as the other kids and she knew she wanted to become friends with her.

The day went by quickly after that, learning new things and getting familiar with the school. When lunch rolled around she grabbed her lunchbox and the food her parents had given her and approached the little girl who had talked about aliens. "You're not like those other boring kids ya' know."

She looked up a little startled at that, slightly afraid that she was being made fun of. "Wh-what do you mean?"

"They're all boring; they just wanna stay here and never do fun stuff. You're like me. You wanna do fun stuff in the stars." She beamed brilliantly, thinking she made the best deduction ever.

The other little girl smiled tentatively at that and scooted over to allow room beside her. "You wanna be friends?"

"Totally!"

And that was how she made her first friend in kindergarten. But her other 'first' was soon to come.

-.-.-.-.-

The day had begun to wind down and the children were all back in their rooms, working on color sheets about the fruits and vegetables they had learned about that day. She was coloring in an apple and had finished with the leaf, and the green crayon, and was reaching for the red one. Just as she was about to grab it though, it was snatched out from under her fingers. She looked up and scowled at the little boy who had taken the crayon from her. He stuck his tongue out at her and started using the red crayon. It was the same boy who, when she had been introducing herself, had laughed at her and told her she was stupid for wanting to explore the stars. His taunting had already made her dislike him, and stealing the crayon she wanted to use made her like him even less.

Her little eyebrows furrowed in anger, and she was getting ready to yell at him when a flash of blue knocked him out of his chair. He was so stunned at what happened that he didn't even cry for a few seconds, his mouth just hung open in confusion because he had no idea how he had gotten on the floor. She was almost just as shocked because her hand had glowed blue right as he had fallen. One second he was in his chair and the next he was sprawled out on the floor. All the other little kids at their table had made startled noises at the sudden flash and movement. They all turned to look at her as the blue glow around her hand slowly started to fade. She was staring at her hand like it had talked and the little boy who had fallen was looking at her like she was a freak.

Mr. Johnson ran over when he saw the flash of blue and he knelt beside her. He knew that she probably had no idea what was going on, most kids her age didn't know what a biotic was since it wasn't exactly common for humans to have the ability. He also knew from the shocked expression on her face that this was the first time anything like this had ever happened. He also went over to the little boy to make sure that he wasn't actually hurt. When he determined that the boy was more startled than anything, Mr. Johnson had called quickly to the main office and asked for someone to come watch the class while he took her to the nurse's office.

"Am I in trouble?" she asked in a small, scared voice.

"No, no dear, you're not. I'm just going to take you to the nurse to make sure you're okay." He gave her the warmest smile he could because he knew how afraid she was.

When they reached the nurse, he quickly and quietly explained what happened and asked if someone could be sent to his room in order to double check and make sure the boy who had been pushed out of his chair was alright. The nurse nodded, "Of course," and sent someone to check. The nurse also got out some juice and crackers for the girl.

He led her over to one of the beds and helped her get up onto it. "I'll be right back, okay?" She nodded and pulled her knees up to her chest, nibbling on the crackers and sipping the juice box.

Mr. Johnson strode quickly out of the nurse's office and headed toward the main office's. He explained what happened to the guidance councilor and the principal before he called the Shepard's on the school's terminal. "Hello, Mrs. Shepard?" he asked as he heard a light feminine voice on the other end.

"Yes, this is she."

"Hi, I'm Mr. Johnson, your daughter's kindergarten teacher. Is your husband there as well?"

"No he is not, but give me a moment to call him on his work omni," she said quickly.

Mr. Johnson waited a few moments before he heard a second ping to notify him that a second person had joined the line.

"Hello? This is Jake Shepard."

"Hello Mr. Shepard. I'm just calling you to inform you that there has been an... incident at school today involving your daughter," Mr. Johnson tried to say as delicately as possible. He heard a sharp intake of breath from Hannah.

"What kind of incident? Is she okay? Was anyone hurt?" The questions tumbled from the worried mother.

"You're daughter is fine ma'am, she was not physically harmed," the teacher said quickly, trying to mollify her.

"Physically? What the hell does that mean? How else could she have been harmed?" Jake Shepard demanded.

"Ah, well... We were in class and she was coloring a picture when another boy took the crayon she was going to use. She... pushed him when he snatched it from her and he fell out of his seat."

"Okay, but how could she have been hurt if she was the one who pushed him? Did he hurt her back?" Mrs. Shepard asked with a confused voice.

"No he didn't do anything to her. See..." Mr. Johnson took a deep breath. He knew this was the point of no return - for him and for them. Their world would be turned completely upside by his revelation.

"She pushed him with biotics." There was complete silence on the other end of the line. Then he heard a quiet hitched sob and Hannah started crying.

"Are... are you certain that's what it was? Biotics? It wasn't a... a trick of the light or something?" Jake's voice was thick with emotion as he spoke.

"I'm sorry, but no. I saw the energy myself. Her hand glowed blue," Mr. Johnson regrettably admitted. "We took her to the nurse's office and she's lying down eating some crackers and juice."

Jake took a few moments to let the information sink in before he spoke again. "Alright... Han, love, will you go get her from school and I'll head straight there from work? I should be able to get there in ten minutes." He was trying to keep his voice calm and soothing for his wife even though his mind was reeling.

Hannah sniffed quietly and got her voice under control. "Okay Jake... just hurry." She was trying to rein in her emotions as she addressed the teacher again. "Mr. Johnson? Please tell her that I'll be there in a few minutes."

"Of course, ma'am. I'll sit in there with her until you get here. Just tell the front office when you arrive and they'll direct you to the nurse's office." Mr. Johnson was satisfied that the Shepard's would be there soon to take their daughter home. "Oh, and same for you Mr. Shepard. When you arrive just ask them to take you to the nurse's office."

"I will. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. Hannah I'll see you soon," Jake said, and ended the connection to the school and his wife.

"Thank you again, Mr. Johnson. I'll be at the school shortly as well." Hannah ended the call and quickly set out the door.

-.-.-.-.-

She sat in the waiting room remembering the day her biotics had first manifested. The boy's name had been Tucker Rolden. They actually went on to become pretty close friends after the incident on the first day of school. And the girl she had eaten lunch with, Julia Kaleen, was good friends with them as well. _I guess it's a good thing my biotics aren't all that strong or could have hurt Tucker pretty bad._

She wiped her eyes one last time to rub away the remaining fogginess, and focused on her dad talking to the doctor. She tried to figure out what he was saying from his facial expressions, but the doctor was keeping them maddeningly neutral. She looked instead to her dad, but all she could see were the dark circles under his eyes that had been getting more and more prominent as her mom's cancer progressed.

The cancer. That was another side effect of the element zero radiation that hadn't manifested until much later. After her biotics had reared its ugly head and they had dealt with the intial shock of it all, the Shepard family had thought they were in the clear. She looked down at the small bundle curled up next to her and couldn't help but smile.

Her little sister McKenzie had been an unexpected surprise. She had been almost 10 when her parents told her she was going to have a little sister and she had been beyond ecstatic. She had always been jealous of her friends who had siblings. They always seemed to be complaining about them, but she had also seen the loving moments between the siblings and it had made her so envious. Of course along with the joy of getting a little sister was the fear that something would be wrong with her. _Like me,_ she thought.

Every checkup had been fraught with nervousness, and they had let out their metaphorical collective breaths every time they came back from a doctor's visit and there were no warning signs. They had been overjoyed when McKenzie was born and showed no symptoms of brain defects or tumors. While the birth hadn't gone as smooth as hers had, there had been no major complications.

But once the hurdle of her birth had been overcome, then came the waiting. Waiting to see if Kenzie would develop the same biotic powers that their first daughter had. Year after year went by, and when McKenzie showed no signs of biotic abilities they all began to hope that their family could put everything behind them. But they hoped in vain.

It had started a couple of months ago. Hannah didn't seem to have as much energy as she once had. Her beautifully tanned skin had a lost some of its radiance and her thick blonde hair started to dull. It was only small things at first, and it happened oh so slowly that they could all almost convince themselves that the signs weren't there at all.

Then, one day her mom had collapsed in the kitchen when she was making dinner, and they all knew they couldn't ignore the signs any longer. With fear in their hearts, the Shepard family went to the doctor's office to get Hannah looked at. And what the doctor told them shattered the happy life they had built and destroyed their perfect bubble of hope.

Hannah Shepard had cancer.

Why it had taken so long to manifest, no one could really say for certain. After the doctors had dropped the c-bomb on them, she had tuned out, her brain unable, or refusing, to wrap itself around the inevitable. She remembered the bitter tears she had cried and her mother's arms holding her tightly. Holding _her_! Her mom was the one dying and she was comforting her family. Just another tribute to the golden heart of Hannah Shepard.

And she was dying. The sickness had lain dormant all those years, hiding in her body, seemingly waiting to strike. And strike it did. When the cancer manifested itself it was so far advanced that there had been nothing the doctors could do. It had spread to most of her major organs and sunk its poisons deep into her body. The doctors said she only had a few months to live.

That had been a few months ago.

Her dad walking back over to them pulled her out of her memories and focused her back into the present. She looked up at him and was struck by the haunted look in his eyes. "Dad?"

Jake's eyes slowly focused on his two daughters and he tried to give them a small smile. "Hey, kiddo. The doctor said Mom is awake right now and wanted to see you."

She swallowed and nodded. She gently pulled McKenzie's head off her shoulder and lowered her little body down on the chair so she didn't wake her up. She headed toward the big double doors that held the rooms for cancer patients behind them. The last two months her mom had been in the hospital and she had long since memorize what room was hers.

She quietly opened the doors and walked down the hallway. The bright lights in the corridor did nothing to lift her somber mood. If anything they just aggravated her. How could things be so bright when her mom was dying?

She got to room 256B and she knocked on the door softly before stepping inside.

"Hello?" she heard a raspy voice call out. Her heart gave a little painful squeeze as she heard how weak her mom sounded.

"Hey, Mom. It's me," she replied as she entered all the way into the room and shut the door behind her. She turned her full gaze onto the small body in the bed and all she wanted to do was fall to the floor sobbing. Her mom must have seen the look in her eyes because she motioned her over to the bedside.

"Hey, baby, it's okay," she cooed softly to her daughter, reaching out a small, pale hand and intertwined their fingers. "How are you doing, honey?"

She looked at her mom with an almost disbelieving look. "How... how am I doing?" She shook her head. "Mom, forget about me. Are you feeling any better?"

Hannah laughed quietly. "Look at us. Both of us too concerned about other people's feelings and so willing to ignore what we are going through." She smiled at her daughter. "I'm doing fine."

"Mom..." She didn't believe her mom for a second. She believed that her mom _wanted_ her to think she was okay, but she could only imagine the pain she must be in.

Hannah pulled up her other arm and patted her daughter's hand affectionately. "Really, honey, I'm fine for right now. I wanted to talk to you though." She paused for a moment and looked into her eyes, the beautiful eyes of her beautiful daughter. "Look at you. My baby girl. Growing up into such a beautiful young lady with such a loving soul."

She half heartedly rolled her eyes at her mom but there was no real attitude behind the action. This was a long standing disagreement between them. Well, maybe not a disagreement, but she thought her mom was seeing someone else. Her, beautiful? No way. She was nowhere near as beautiful as her mother was. She didn't have her mom's gorgeous blonde tresses or perfectly toned body. And growing up? Her 15th birthday was in 2 weeks and she didn't feel grown up at all.

"Mom, stop," she said. "What did you want to tell me?"

Hannah let her eyes trail over her daughter one more time before she spoke. "Baby girl, I know this is hard for you guys. I never wanted to leave you like this; leave you before I could see the amazing woman you are going to be. Honey, after I'm gone-"

"No, Mom. Please don't say it," she cried, tears starting to leak out of her eyes. "If you don't say it... I mean, they could still fix you right?"

"Hey, listen to me," she gently placed one finger across her lips to silence her. "I'm at peace with this, honey. I'm thankful for all of the time I was able to spend with you and raise you. You and McKenzie are the joy of my life and I wouldn't trade a thing that has happened for anything in the world. If I knew I had to get the cancer in order to hold you and your sister in my arms, I would do it over and over again," she said firmly. "But baby girl, your dad doesn't see it that way." Hannah shook her head sadly. "He refuses to accept that I've come to terms with this disease and that I'm... not okay with it, but I've made my peace with it. You're going to have to help him, honey."

She saw her daughter shake her head and open her mouth to argue, but before she got a word out Hannah continued softly, "I know it's a lot to ask of you, sweetheart. But I know you. I know that you can do this. Daddy is going to need you to stay strong. McKenzie too. My beautiful baby girl with the strong, beautiful, infinitely caring soul, can you do that? For me?"

How could she say no? She would do anything for her mom. She loved her mom more than anything in the world. Could she be strong enough to, not only brave her own sadness, but also the storm of her father's despair? _I... I'll have to be. For mom._ She nodded and all she could choke out was, "Okay, Momma."

Hannah breathed a sigh of relief. She hated placing this burden on her eldest but she knew that with her passing Jake would fall apart. And McKenzie... _Oh my precious little girl. _McKenzie would need her older sister more than ever. She looked at the tears running down her daughter's face and she wiped them away with the back of her fingers. "I'm sorry, honey. I'm so sorry I have to leave you."

"It's... It's okay Momma. I know you've fought hard. It wouldn't be fair for the rest of us to burden you with our sadness on top of the pain you're going through." She swallowed tears and continued. "So I'll try, Momma. I'll try my best to be strong for you. I'll help Daddy and I'll help Kenzie. I promise."

Hannah almost lost her composure right then, listening to the strength in her daughter's voice, and she thought her heart would burst from the pride she felt toward her daughter. _My baby, my baby..._ "Oh, baby girl, come here." She reached out and pulled her daughter to her chest and hugged her fiercely. She whispered into her ear, "I love you so much Sydney."

* * *

_A/N - Thanks for all the inital support from the first chapter :) I'll probably start on a weekly update even though I can barely restrain myself from just putting everything up for all of you. I want to thank 16able for letting me use her kick-awesome artwork for my cover photo! The link to the full picture is at the bottom of my profile._

_And I promise I'm not evil! Believe me it hurts me as much as it hurts you to write this. But just stay with me, it'll be worth it!_


	3. The Inside and the Outside

Chapter 3 - The Inside and the Outside

Jake Shepard cradled his head in his hands as he sat in the hushed waiting room, the buzz of the fluorescent lights humming in the air. He though it a rather irksome noise and wished that he could turn the glaring lights off; they were only compounding the ache that was pounding behind his eyes. His headache had pretty much started the day that Hannah had been diagnosed and it hadn't really left him since. On some days it was worse than others, but it was always there, right behind his eyes, pounding away. He tried rubbing his temples to get it to go away but it did nothing to lessen the incessant ache.

He turned and pulled his head up when he heard the sound of the ward doors and saw them opening. His eldest walked out and approached the area that they had claimed as 'theirs' since Hannah had been in the hospital. He watched her slowly walk back over to where McKenzie was sitting and ease her way back under her little sister so Kenzie could sleep on her again. The little girl snuffled a little in her sleep and rubbed her head on her older sister's shoulder.

At first they thought the age difference between the girls might have been a problem. They were worried that Sydney might just think of McKenzie as a pest and an interloper in her almost 10 year old life. She hadn't surprised them per se, because they knew how caring and loving Sydney was, but she soundly proved them wrong. Sydney fell in love with her little sister and wanted to show her off to everyone. She would go around to everyone she met and introduced herself saying, "I'm Sydney, and I have the cutest, best little sister ever!" Her parents thought it absolutely adorable. They had still been a little nervous that her fascination with her sister would wear off after a few months, but Sydney's love for McKenzie just grew as Kenzie did. And the love the parents had for their daughters grew as well.

Sydney was probably the best older sister out there. While they had been afraid the age difference was going to be a hurdle in Sydney and McKenzie's relationship, it was actually what made it so amazing. Sydney saw herself as McKenzie's protector and guardian; she was the big sister and she had to look out for her baby sister. She always said that like it was the most obvious thing in the world. If Kenzie had been older, Sydney probably wouldn't have felt the need to look out for her as much and most likely would have acted more like a regular big sister; teasing, arguing, and messing with her.

And for all the love that Sydney showed McKenzie, Kenzie thought her older sister hung the moon. She thought her big sister was the best person ever (aside from Momma, of course). She idolized Sydney and always wanted to be around her. But they did have their sibling moments just like any other kids, not everything about their relationship was perfect. They did bicker occasionally and they definitely knew how to get on each other's nerves, but their fighting was never serious. Sydney knew that it would be a completely unfair fight with her little sister being so young, and McKenzie, while she could get worked up, never wanted her big sister to be mad at her. Their parents thanked their lucky stars everyday that they had such beautiful and wonderful kids.

Jake watched the two of them through his fingers, noting how Sydney wrapped a protective arm around Kenzie and gently stroked her little head. While Sydney looked a little more like him, McKenzie favored Hannah a lot more. His youngest had the same beautiful blonde hair that his wife did and the same small, round face. She was only five and a half years old so he knew that she still had a lot of growing to do, but he was pretty sure she would still keep the hair color. So far though, her eyes hadn't matched Hannah's. McKenzie had big, warm, and deep brown eyes, like her dad, and they would twinkle and shine whenever she smiled. She reminded him of a big puppy sometimes, big eyes just taking the world in and looking up at everyone. It was hard not to smile around Kenzie, she was just a bundle of happiness and joy. Most kids her age were, but he knew that it was also just part of who his youngest was and she would always be like that.

Sydney, on the other hand, took more after him in looks. She had dark brown locks like him, but her hair was thick and long, the dark tresses waved well past her shoulder blades down her back. He often times thought her hair looked like a beautiful dark chocolate waterfall cascading down her back. He knew that she didn't like her hair all that much because she had wished that she had gotten Hannah's blonde color, but he thought that she didn't give herself enough credit; her hair was beautiful.

Along with hair color, Sydney had also inherited some of his face structures. Jake knew he wasn't insanely handsome by any means, but he was an attractive man, and he had strong, striking features. His nose being one of those. Her nose was long, regal, and straight, one thing that she _was_ very grateful for. Noses were an easy feature to make fun of for teenagers, and she was glad that she had gotten her dad's nose. She knew it was kind of a weird thing to be thankful for, but she was.

While Jake had a strong, striking jaw line, it had been softened somewhat in his daughter. It became femininely striking for her, not overly striking. She had a more square face because of it, but not boxy. He and Hannah both had somewhat high and strong cheekbones, so there was no way that their daughters could have avoided those. McKenzie still had a baby face so hers weren't really all that prominent yet, but Sydney's were becoming so. As she got older and more mature, she started losing her childish appearance and her features became more prominent. Jake agreed full heartedly with his wife that their eldest was going to be somewhat of a knockout in a few years. Unlike Hannah however, he had realized how pretty she was going to be, and was nowhere near as pleased about it. It just meant he was going to have to fend off more boys from her.

While almost everything about Sydney's face reflected her dad's, there was one aspect of her visage that was purely Hannah. Her eyes. One of the things that had initially captivated Jake about Hannah were her eyes. They possessed a sort of magnetizing hold that made people want to look deeper and never look away. Unlike some people who could use their eyes to hide what they were feeling, Hannah's reflected whatever she was feeling, and her moods were infectious.

Another part of their draw was the color: they were very peculiar. Her eyes were a sort of aquamarine that, on any given day, could be more blue or more green. The different colors were more prominent depending on what color of clothing she wore. The hue was also slightly and strangely linked to Hannah's moods. The more calm and mellow Hannah was, the more her eyes seemed to reflect blue, and inversely the more excited or worked up she was they shone green. Most of the time they were just a blend of the two colors, but he thought that whatever color they were, that they were the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen.

Sydney had the same eyes as her mother, right down to the effects that her mood had on them. It was almost uncanny how alike their eyes were. One difference between them though, was that Sydney seemed to have slight more control over how much her eyes gave away. All you had to do with Hannah was look at her eyes to see what she was feeling, Sydney didn't broadcast her emotions as readily. He wasn't sure how or why his daughter seemed to be able to do so and his wife couldn't. Maybe Hannah had at one point in her life, but as she grew older she found that she didn't need to anymore. Sydney was a teenager and who knew what went on in kids heads at that age. Thinking about it made him realize that his daughter was almost 15 and that she was, in his opinion, growing up way too quickly.

He looked at Sydney holding her little sister and he wished that he could just keep them at that age. There were a lot of things he wished he could keep the same though. For one, he wished that his wife didn't have cancer. And even though he had been married to Hannah for almost 18 years, he wished that he could have more; he wished that he could grow old with her, could watch her get more and more beautiful with time. He could never have enough time when it came to Hannah, he realized. He could love her for lifetimes and it would never be enough.

He cursed everything in the universe that was conspiring to take his wife away from him and to take his daughter's mother from them. Why Hannah? Of all the trillions of people in the galaxy, why her? She was one of the most gentle, kind, and caring person anyone would ever meet. No one was a stranger for Hannah. She treated everyone like they were the most important person in the world. When people talked, and people always seemed to talk to Hannah because she would always listen, she was genuinely interested in what they had to say and she honestly cared about their problems. Everyone who ever came in contact with his wife felt like they had a clean slate with her. She always saw the good in people, even when he himself saw no redeeming qualities in the person. People always had the benefit of the doubt with her, she was willing to overlook anything people did in the past.

When he first met Hannah and realized that about her personality he was afraid that people would take advantage of her and abuse the trust she had in people. And with anyone else, it might have happened. But even the meanest and worst kinds of people seemed to be on their best behavior around her. They recognized the golden soul that she had and it made them want to be good. She was so sincere and honest about her care for people that, in turn, people reciprocated. It was impossible to not want to be a better person around her.

When he first realized that he loved her he knew that he had gotten into an infinitely long line. Who wouldn't love Hannah? He had been somewhat dismayed when he saw how many people would just fall at her feet if she asked: People younger than him, people older than him, people uglier than him and people definitely more attractive than him. Hell, there were just as many women in that line as there were men. Hannah had a ethereal power that made people fall in love with her. And she wasn't even conscious of it.

That's what had made him the most astounded, but also what made him love her that much more. She was so humble that she did not even pick up on the fact that she had so many people that loved her. If it had been anyone else he would have said it was arrogance that made them ignore all the attention that was sent their way, but not Hannah. To this day he had no idea how _he_ had been the one for her to fall back in love with. Out of every possible person she could have chosen to give her love to, she had picked him. He wasn't the smartest, he wasn't the most athletic, he wasn't the richest and he certainly wasn't the most good looking. But Hannah had seen something in him worth loving, and he had thanked any and all of the powers that be every single night that he got to fall asleep with such a perfect person in his arms.

And now all of that was being slowly and viciously ripped away from him. The universe was going to lose one its brightest souls to something as banal as cancer. You would think that by now they would have been able to cure the awful disease. They were in the 22nd century for crying out loud. They could travel through the galaxy in ships that flew at the speed of light. There was a diverse galactic community that had more than half a dozen different races of beings living in it, some that could live anywhere from 40 years to over a thousand. Humans were at their most scientific peak ever and they couldn't find a way to cure cancer. How was that possible?

Jake gritted his teeth and tugged at his short brown hair in anguish and frustration. He wanted to scream at anything and everything. He wanted to crawl into the darkest hole and allow his despair to consume him. He wanted to claw his way to the heavens and destroy whatever cynical god thought it necessary to inflict this pain. He wanted peaceful oblivion from the pain in his heart. And he knew he couldn't do any of those things and it made him all the more enraged and heartbroken. He gripped his head tighter and allowed silent tears to make tracks down his face.

-.-.-.-.-

Sydney went back into the waiting room after she talked with her mom full of heartache and pain, but also understanding, however unwanted it was. She understood what her mom had asked of her and what she had to do in this situation. All she wanted to do was weep and let the emptiness of loss overtake her, but she had made a promise to her mom. She had to look out for her dad and her little sister. She could not be selfish with her pain, she had to push through it and take care of her family.

She was a lot like Hannah in that she enjoyed being kind to people, but she was tempered by the genes of her father. She tried to be like her mom when it came to interacting with people, but it wasn't quite as effortless for her. She realized that she had a choice of whether or not to be nice to people, whereas her mother didn't even recognize there was a choice, she just was. And for the most part, she never fought the urge to help others, she wanted to. Obviously, she was still a teenager, and she still had her gossipy moments and her selfish moments and her mean moments, but it was never how she was for an extended period of time.

So, she knew that she would try and keep her promise to her mom as best she could and watch out for her family. Sydney knew her mom was afraid that she had guilt-tripped her into making the promise, but Sydney knew that she had made it willingly. She would do anything for her mom, and really, who wouldn't? She knew, under normal circumstances, that her dad would have done absolutely anything Hannah asked, but these weren't normal circumstances. She knew that no matter how much her mom asked, her dad would never, ever be able to let Hannah go the way she wanted. Sydney could tell that her mom was honest to goodness alright with what was going on. Well, maybe not alright - no, not alright - but definitely at peace with the situation. She had come to terms with her illness and was attempting to help everyone else through it. Sydney laughed harshly to herself. _Even when Mom is dying she is looking out for other people._

Sydney knew how her mom was with everyone and she realized that she herself inherited the need to help people from her, but it could still astound her that her mom was so completely selfless. And Hannah would never sacrifice her own happiness to make others feel better, that was the crazy thing. It may seem like Hannah could put aside her own pain and unhappiness to help others but she would honestly be okay when she was helping people. Just the fact that she was helping people made her happy. It was a weird and bizarre concept but it's how her mom thought. She was not someone who would let other people walk all over her, but she was still able to be completely humble and gracious to other people. She dealt with any of her own issues first before she helped people, but just the fact that she was going to help people allowed her to move past her own issues. It was crazy, and Sydney knew she would never be able to fully understand her mom's brain, but she was fully able to accept it. It was part of what made her mom her mom.

She sat down next to her baby sister and gently rested Kenzie's head back onto her shoulder. When she was sure she hadn't woken her sister up, she wrapped her arm around the little girl's shoulders and began stroking her hair softly. Glancing at her dad, Sydney thought she saw tears slowing creeping down his face and her heart constricted painfully. This disease was wrecking their whole family. Swallowing back her own tears, she leaned her head back against the wall and she closed her eyes, attempting to escape reality and retreat into sleep.

-.-.-.-.-

A nurse dropping a clipboard startled her awake. She tensed up for a few seconds before she remembered she had fallen asleep in the waiting room. She looked down and saw that her little sister was still curled up next to her. She stifled a yawn and looked down at her omni to see that a few hours had passed and that it was close to 10 at night. She looked up over at her dad and saw that he was holding his head in his hands. "Dad?"

Jake lifted his head up when he heard his name and look at his daughter. He saw the concerned eyes of Hannah looking back at him and for a split second forgot it was Sydney and not his wife. He blinked quickly and shook his head. "Yeah, Syd?"

She saw her dad shake his head but didn't really wonder about it. "Are you going to go home tonight?" Her dad needed sleep. She wasn't really sure how much he had been resting since the diagnosis, but if the bags under his eyes were any indication, then it was not much.

"No, I'm probably going to stay here the night."

"Dad, you need your sleep. You know Mom wouldn't be happy if she knew how little you were sleeping," Sydney tried to point out to her dad. She figured invoking what her mom thought would maybe get him to reconsider.

"I'm fine. I want to stay close to your mom anyway, in case she needs me."

"The hospital can just call you if anything changes you know. We don't live that far, it would only take a few minutes to get here if they did call," she countered her father again.

Jake shook his head. "Syd, I'm fine. I'll drop you and your sister off at home and then I'm coming back here."

Sydney resigned herself to the fact that her dad wouldn't leave the hospital, wouldn't leave her mom for any longer than it took for him to take them home. "Okay, Dad," she said with a resigned sigh. She slowly stood up and gingerly picked her little sister up in her arms. They made their way to their skycar in the parking lot and she loaded her little sister up into the car seat.

-.-.-.-.-

The ride home was full of silence and personal thoughts as her dad drove them home. He parked the car and got out to get Kenzie out of her car seat. Sydney went and opened the front door and held it open for her dad to carry her sister into the house. He tucked her into her bed and came down to see Sydney waiting by the door still. "Aren't you going to go to bed, Syd?"

"No, Dad. I'm going back to the hospital with you."

Jake sighed. "No, Sydney you're going to stay here and watch your sister."

"Dad, she was out like a light. She won't wake up for hours and I'll be back by the time she wakes up in the morning," she argued.

"Sydney, I am not leaving your sister here by herself and I'm going back to the hospital. You're going to stay here," Jake said sternly.

"If I'm staying then you need to stay too. Dad, you need to sleep. I told Mom I'd take care of you and Kenzie."

"Look," Jake said sharply, "I'm fine. And I'm the parent, not the other way around. I take care of you guys. When I say I'm fine, I'm fine. And I'm telling you to stay here with your sister and you're going to." Sydney was about to open her mouth to argue again, but her dad cut her off. "Sydney! Go to your damn room and stay here with your sister."

Sydney shut her mouth with a snap. Her dad never swore in front of them. She looked at him with weary eyes and without a word, she turned around and when upstairs to her room.

Jake realized that he had snapped at her and swore to himself. "Sydney, wait," he called after her retreating form. She acted like she hadn't heard him and went into her room without another word. He mentally kicked himself for his slip up and sighed as he turned back and left the house. He got back into the skycar and as he was about leave for the hospital, his omni-tool lit up from an incoming call. He recognized the ID as the hospital and dread pooled in his stomach. With shaking hands and fear in his soul, he accepted the call.

"Jake Shepard?"

"Y-yes?"

"You need to come back to the hospital right now, sir."

Jake could barely bring himself to ask the next question. He was barely able to whisper, "Is... Is Hannah... Has she...?"

"No, sir. But she hasn't got much time left. We thought it would be best if you and your family came back."

Fear, anger, and despair were warring in his body and tearing him apart. "How long?" he asked with a hoarse whisper.

"We don't think she's going to make it through the night, sir."

* * *

_A/N - I have no self-control when it comes to putting chapters up apparently haha. I said I'd get on a weekley schedule but I just can't contain myself. So here's chapter 3 you lucky ducks. _


	4. Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

Chapter 4 - Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

The breeze gently rustled the leaves of the trees and wound its way through the tall grass, causing a soft whistle to fill the air. It trailed its way across a face and caused stray tendrils of hair to swirl around and tickle the soft skin. After twirling about for a few moments longer, it frolicked back through the stalks of grass and swept back into the sky, leaving the face it had danced upon.

The one the face belonged to wished memories and pain could be so fleeting; staying for a moment and then, when they got to be too much, rushing away to leave peace and calm in their wake. She wished the memories swirling around in her head could be so, but they always came back, washing over her like they were now and leaving no escape.

-.-.-.-.-

_"Dad, what's going on?"_

_Silence._

_"Dad. What's happening?"_

_A single tear._

_"Daddy..."_

_Eyes that reflected the sorrow of the soul locking with hers._

_"Oh..."_

_Tears slowly leaking from closed eyes._

_"Can... Is there time to say goodbye?"_

_A shuddering, slow nod._

_"Have you gone back to see her yet?"_

_A jerking shake of the head._

_Smooth hands reaching out, grabbing larger, quaking ones._

_Resistance at first, refusing to acknowledge the inevitable._

_"She needs to say goodbye. You need to say goodbye."_

_A final tug of rebellion and then resignation._

_"It'll be okay, Daddy. She's ready. We have to be too."_

_Silence._

-.-.-.-.-

She opened her eyes as a cloud passed over the bright sun, casting a temporary shadow across her body. The sky was a brilliant and vibrant blue, the soft masses of white clouds standing in stark relief to the bright sky. Occasionally birds would flit across the sky and their crisp, joyful songs could be heard amongst the trees.

The day was almost perfect. The sun heated the air and brushed warm rays along everything. And while by itself it might have made things slightly too hot, the wind counteracted it, blowing its cooling caresses across everything. The combination made for a beautiful day and even when haunted by memories of sadness, she couldn't help but revel in its beauty.

-.-.-.-.-

_She made sure her dad and her little sister went in to see her. Out of the three of them, she knew she had to be the one to stay strong. McKenzie wasn't even 6 yet, for crying out loud, and her dad... Her dad just couldn't handle it. Even with it staring him in the face, he still could not bring himself to accept what was happening._

_So Sydney made them go in first. She held onto her little sister in the waiting room as her dad went through the double doors and back to the room. She could only guess at what was being said. She knew her parents loved each other, but her mom was her dad's whole world. Sure, her and her sister were a part of that world, there was no doubt that he loved them, but nothing could come close to how much her dad loved her mom._

_It was a long time until her dad came out of the room, and when he returned, he looked like he had aged ten years. His face was ashen and grey, his eyes were sunken and dark circles ringed them. He moved back into the waiting room like there was no energy left in him and he slumped limply into a chair, as if all of his bones had disappeared from his body._

_She knew there was nothing she could say to him, so she set McKenzie on the floor and took her hand. She led her sister through the big double doors and down the bright hallway to her mother's room. "I'll stay right out here, okay Kenzie?" she said, kneeling down to look at her younger sibling. McKenzie just nodded and hugged Sydney tightly for a few moments before she gently opened the door and slipped inside._

_Again, all she could do was speculate as to what her mom was saying, but unlike with her father, she had a better guess at what was being said. Her sister was only five and a half years old, there was only so much that a mind that young could handle. She understood what death was, but maybe not its finality and the 'forever' of it._

_She didn't wait outside as long as she'd had to when her dad was in there, and soon, McKenzie came out with tears on her little cheeks and eyes red. She leaned down and picked up her little sister, holding her tightly. McKenzie clung to her big sister and sniffed into her hair, her little hands tightly gripping the fabric of Sydney's shirt._

_She turned and retreated back down the hallway to the waiting room where their family had spent so much time. She pushed open one of the doors and saw that her dad hadn't moved. She knew that he was completely unaware of anything around him and that everything around him could have caught fire and he wouldn't even have noticed._

_"Kenzie-bear, I'm going to put you next to Daddy, okay?" McKenzie nodded. "You can't move. You have to stay here until sissy gets back, alright?" Another small nod. "Good girl, Kenzie." She kissed her little sister's forehead and wiped away her tears with the pads of her thumbs. "Love you, Kenzie-bear."_

_She turned around quietly and approached the big double doors again. She pulled one open and stepped back into the hallway. She had lost track of how many times she had traversed the corridor, how many endless times she had walked under the bright lights toward her mother's room. But she knew this time was probably going to be her last._

_She was almost glad it would be the final trip. The intense light from the fluorescent fixtures and their incessant buzzing never ceased to irritate her. The cold metal and utilitarian colors that covered everything wore on her like a mind-numbing drug. She didn't know how doctors and nurses faced it day in and day out. She was almost glad it would be her final trip because she didn't what the memory of her mother to be associated with such a dismal place._

_She took the final steps and reached the door of the room that her mom was in, the room she had been in for the duration of her stay at the hospital. She reached up and she felt the cool touch of the door handle beneath her hands. She was afraid to turn it and open the door because she knew that as she did so, she would be closing the door of her mother's role in her life with it. _

_She took a deep breath and steeled her nerves. Clamping down on the voice in her head that told her to run, to get out of there and forget about everything, she turned the door handle and slowly pushed the door open. Taking a few tentative steps into the room, she quietly shut the door behind her and turned to the body on the hospital bed. She wanted to cry as she again saw the state that her once vibrant mother was in. It had only been a few hours since she had last looked at her mom, but if it was possible she almost looked worse. Before she said anything her mom's voice drifted across the room quietly._

_"Sydney."_

-.-.-.-.-

It felt kind of like a cosmic joke to her that the day was so beautiful. How could there be a day so bright and perfect when her mom's condition had been so washed out and failing. The irony of it, however unacceptable, was not lost on her. She remembered her mom like that and it made a part of her want to curse at the sky and its perfectness. But she was just so tired of anger and sadness that she couldn't even formulate a negative thought.

She had sort of numbed-out after a while. There was only so much emotion someone could feel before they just simply stopped feeling. She was still completely aware of everything around her and what was going on, but it was almost like she just couldn't bring herself to care. Sydney knew all the feelings would eventually come back, they always did, but this had been the pattern. She would become overwhelmed by her emotions, would almost feel like she would burst if she felt anything else, and then a strange still would come over her and the emotions would wash away. The cycle would happen every few hours, and this was one of those intervals where she felt devoid of any feelings, just a sort of a vacant, pleasant nothing. She knew it would end eventually within the next few hours, but she was enjoying it while it lasted.

-.-.-.-.-

_"Sydney."_

_"Momma..." Sydney's voice cracked. Tears started welling out of her eyes._

_"Shhh, baby, come here," Hannah cooed to her daughter, stretching out her frail hand._

_Sydney approached her mother's bedside and sunk into the chair as a sob caught in her throat. Hannah interlaced their fingers and brought Sydney's hand to her lips, gently kissing the back of her daughter's hand and brushing a stray lock of hair behind Sydney's ear. Mother and daughter just sat without words for a few moments, basking in each other's presence and cherishing their last moments together._

_"Momma..." Sydney swallowed back tears. "Momma, I'm not ready. I'm... you can't go, I still need you."_

_"Oh, baby girl I know, I know," Hannah whispered. "I could have eternity with you and I wouldn't be ready either. But it doesn't matter what we want this time, honey. I'm leaving, and I want you to know that you and your sister are the most beautiful and precious things in the world to me. All of you... our family is the most important thing I have ever been a part of and you are my loves; the essence of my heart is reflect in all of you." Hannah paused and took a shuddering breath, talking was somewhat difficult as her body was shutting down. After a few moments she continued. "And even though I'm not physically going to be here anymore, I will always be in your heart, I will always be watching out for you."_

_Sydney noticed the pause in her mom's speech and the small tears in her mother's eyes as she spoke and it made her cry that much harder. "Momma I love you too. You are the most amazing mom in the galaxy; no one has had, or ever will have, a better mom than me and Kenzie do. I'm not ready for you to go, Momma, but I'm trying to be strong. I'm trying to be strong for you, and for Daddy, and for Kenzie. I'll always try, and I know what I promised you, but when you go Momma I don't know if I can do it." She closed her eyes tightly and clung to her mom's hand. "I know I promised you, Momma, but... I don't know... I don't know..."_

_Her mom reached with her other hand and touched Sydney under the chin, raising her head up. "Baby, look at me." Sydney slowly opened her eyes and looked into her mother's. "You don't have to be perfect, baby girl. I'm not expecting you to ignore your own sadness and only focus on your father and McKenzie. Don't ever think that I expect the impossible from you." Hannah had to pause and take another breath, the pain in her body choosing to flair at that moment. Sydney saw the look of pain cross her mother's face and she sat up in alarm._

_"Momma..."_

_"It's okay, baby." Hannah composed herself and started again. "I know what I asked you and I know what you promised, but don't ignore your own sorrow. I just don't want it to consume you either. I want you to be happy, baby girl. I know it won't be right away, and I know it won't happen anytime soon, but I don't want you to be afraid of being happy and think that by not being sad, you are forgetting about me." She brushed her fingers along her daughter's cheek. "You're a loving soul Sydney, and because of that I know you will want to ignore your own feelings and help other people, and that's why I asked you to take care of them, but also why I'm telling you now not to kill yourself to do it either."_

_She leaned over and kissed her daughter's forehead. "You're just like your Daddy's last name, baby girl; you're a shepherd. You watch out for other people and you take care of them. It's one of the things that makes you such a beautiful and caring girl, Syd, and I don't want you to ever lose that. But don't lose yourself." Hannah sighed as she finished talking, the energy from speaking so much washing over her. She closed eyes and squeezed her daughter's hand softly._

_"Momma you're tired. I'll let you sleep." Sydney started to stand up but her mom didn't release her hand and tugged her back into her seat._

_"No, baby... It's okay," Hannah said quietly. "I just need to catch my breath...and close my eyes...for a bit..." Hannah's voice was growing soft._

_Sydney could almost feel what was happening, she could almost feel her mom slipping away. Two halves of her emotions were warring with her; one part of her wanted to scream and wail and demand that her mom fight it and stay with them, and the other part just wanted to hold onto her mother tightly as she was finally allowed relief and freedom from her pain filled body. She sat still for a moment while her conscious battled it out and then she rose from the chair. "Momma?"_

_"Hmm...Yes, baby?" Hannah asked with closed eyes._

_"Can I... can I lay down with you. Just one more time?"_

_"Of course... I'm just... really tired... Could you... help me... move over?" the words came from her lips in almost a whisper. Sydney let go of her mom's hand and gently slipped her arms under her mother's small body. She carefully shifted her mom over a few inches and cautiously climbed into the bed, moving the hospital blanket so it wasn't caught beneath her. Once she was settled next to her mom, she draped the blanket back over the two of them and she held onto her mother's hand with both hands, gently laying her head onto her mom's shoulder. _

_Hannah shifted her head over and kissed the top of her daughter's head, using some of her quickly waning energy to bring her arm over and caress Sydney's wet cheek. "I... love you... so much... baby girl," she whispered into the warm, brown hair. "My baby with... the golden soul... My little shepherd... My Sydney..." With the last remaining shreds of energy her body had, she held onto Sydney's shoulder and rolled onto her side. She draped her arm across her eldest daughter's body in one last embrace and held her close. "I think... I'll just... rest for... a little bit..."_

_Sydney was letting tears stream from her eyes unchecked as she clung to her mom. She left one hand clasped tightly in her mom's hand and brought the other up and looped it around the dying woman's waist. "Sleep, Momma. I'll hold you while you get your rest. I love you, Momma," Sydney cried into her mother's shoulder._

_"Okay... sleep... Syd..."_

-.-.-.-.-

It hadn't happen right away. After Hannah fell asleep, Sydney continued to hold her mom and cry quietly. She herself had actually fallen asleep in her mother's arms after a few more minutes. Sydney had been so exhausted from crying, that when the doctors were alerted by the machines and came into Hannah's room, the wild beeping of the medical instruments did not even wake her.

Two days ago, Hannah Shepard passed away peacefully in her sleep, holding her eldest daughter in one last embrace as she left the world and escaped the pain that had been plaguing her body.

Even though she was still in one of her 'numbed-out' phases, a tear still slipped from the corner of her eye and slid down her temple. Her body still reacted to the sadness of the memory even if her mind wasn't allowing it to overwhelm her at the moment. She had run out to the field when her emotions had been mercilessly tormenting her, but by the time she had run the 2 miles to the clearing, the wave of nothingness had washed over her. She hadn't moved an inch from where she had originally dropped when she reached the grassy meadow hours ago.

She felt the tear work its way almost all the way to her ear before she rubbed it away with the back of her hand. She sighed quietly and closed her eyes, breathing in the crisp air that held faint traces of earthy dirt and fresh grass. _I'm going to have to go back pretty soon... _She opened her eyes after a moment and looked back up into the clear, blue sky. She wished the clouds would descend from above her, envelope her in fog, and just whisk her away from reality. She didn't feel like going back and diving once again into the sorrow and pain of death that surrounded her house and family. _But I promised Momma._

She sighed one last time in resignation and slowly began stirring her body from its place on the dirt. She clenched and loosed her muscles a few times, starting from her feet and working her way up her body. She was stiff after hours of not moving even the slightest and her muscles needed to warm up a bit. She slowly rose up from her spot on the ground and stretched her arms above her head, reaching to the sky and willing it one last time to engulf her. When she was denied oblivion yet again, she resigned herself to her fate and turned back toward the direction of her house.

She had sprinted to the field in wild sorrow and hadn't really thought about the distance. Now, in her mellowed, blissful state, she knew the walk back would take a little longer. _All the longer to steady myself before I have to dive back into everything._ And everything was a good description. Back to her father, who seemed to be in a trance of despair. Back to her little sister, who was still asking if maybe her momma would come home. Back to her house, where the memory of her mother was infused into every aspect of its walls. Back to the plans and preparations as they were wondering how they were going to live the rest of their lives now that Hannah was gone. It was an endless sea of swirling sadness, confusion, and anger, and she had to go back into all of it and help sort it all out. She had promised.

So, she was going back to everything.

* * *

_A/N - Well, I've discovered that I love flashbacks haha. This chapter has a much different set up than the other ones and I had fun writing it. Okay, I promise I'm a sweet and kind person in real life, honest. I have no idea where this chapter came from, but I can probably guarantee it hurt me more to write it than it did for you guys to read it. Guys I cried while I wrote it haha. But, I'm no longer apologizing for the heartache this family is going through, sorry 'bout 'ya ;) If any of you really hate me for all this anguish, pm me and I'll tell you exactly how long it will go on for so your little heart can prepare itself and look forward to the light in the dark. Happy crying._

_And Zant, I know you are eating this up you sick, sick sadist. ;)_


	5. I Didn't Want You To Go

Chapter 5 - I Didn't Want You To Go

_Day of the funeral (October 2186)_

Sydney knelt down in front of her little sister and helped pull the dress over the little girl's head, making sure that her arms went through the right holes. With a gentle tug, the little blonde head popped through and the dress settled on petite shoulders. Sydney smoothed out all the twists and wrinkles and un-tucked McKenzie's hair from the collar around the neck of the dress. She settled the blonde locks as they cascaded down her back and she kissed McKenzie's forehead. "You look beautiful, Kenzie-bear," she said quietly to her little sister.

"Not as bootiful as you, sissy," the little girl said as she wrapped her arms around her big sister's neck.

Sydney slipped her arms around her little waist and picked her up."Of course you are, silly. You are the prettiest girl in the whole wide world." She kissed McKenzie's nose softly and smiled.

Sad brown eyes looked into soft blue-ish eyes. "No... Momma was the pwettiest girl in the world." She shook her head and buried her face into her older sister's neck. "I miss her, sissy. Why can't Momma come back?"

Sydney's heart broke as she held McKenzie close to her body, cradling the small child to her chest. "I know Kenzie-bear, I miss Momma too." She stroked soft, golden hair soothingly, trying to comfort her little sister. "I wish she could come back too. But Momma had to go."

She heard small sniffles and felt hot tears in the crook of her neck. "But why? Why she have to go?"

_I wonder that all the time..._ She sat down on McKenzie's bed and gently pulled the little girl away from her. She situated her sister in her lap and put both hands to her small face, thumbs tenderly wiping away the tears. "No one really knows why some people have to leave, Kenzie. Sometimes good and beautiful and amazing people have to go before their time. It never really makes sense, and we could spend forever wondering why if we let ourselves. But Momma wouldn't want us being sad and angry forever. I know she wants you to grow up to be the most beautiful little girl and live the best life. And," Sydney pulled one hand down and placed it over McKenzie's heart, "she will always be with you, right here, Kenzie-bear. She will always watch out for you."

McKenzie looked down at her big sister's hand and placed one of her smaller ones over it. She then looked back up at Sydney and put her other little hand over her sister's heart. "Momma in you too, sissy. She think you bootiful and want you happy."

Sydney dropped her other hand and covered the small one over her heart. A few tears slipped from her eyes and down her cheeks as she closed her eyes. She leaned her forehead against McKenzie's and said, "Yeah, Kenzie-bear... she is. And she wants both of us to be happy and grow up strong."

"But... I still sad." McKenzie's lower lip trembled slightly as she spoke. "I... I know she want us happy, but I still miss her." She was a little bit afraid to speak because she thought voicing her sadness would make her mom sad.

"That's okay, Kenzie. I'm still sad too, and Momma knows we won't be happy right away. We can be sad for a long time if we need to, but we gotta remember that everyday Momma is still with us and still looking out for us. It may take awhile, but we will," - _I hope _- "be able to live without crying all the time." Sydney dearly hoped that she could live out the words she just spoke to McKenzie. She knew her mom wanted them to get over her death as quickly as possible and get back to living their lives, but with her passing still so fresh, it felt like that would be impossible. _How will I ever get over this, Mom?_

McKenzie nodded her head to show that she at least understood the words, but she, like her sister, wasn't sure if she could fully live them out just yet. "That's kinda what Momma said too. She also say be good for you and Daddy."

Sydney kissed the cute little nose. "And I know you will, Kenzie-bear. You're a beautiful little girl and a good little angel. And it's okay if you aren't perfect, Kenzie, no one is." She took both of McKenzie's hands in her bigger ones and she intertwined their fingers. "And I'll try and be a good big sister. If I'm ever acting dumb or silly you have permission to tell me so." Sydeny smiled a little and took one of McKenzie's hands and made her lightly punch her shoulder. "If I'm not being a good big sister you gotta hit me a little bit and tell me I'm being a dufus-head, okay?"

McKenzie giggled a little and nodded her head. She wrapped her arms back around Sydney's neck and hugged her sister tightly. "I love you, sissy. I'll be good for you and Daddy."

"And I'll be good for you, Kenzie-bear." She held McKenzie against her for a few more moments before she stood up and set her little sister on her feet. She leaned down and kissed the top of her little head before saying, "Alright, you have to go get your shoes on before we leave. Do you need any help with them?" She knew her mom had just started teaching McKenzie how to tie her own shoes but wasn't sure how well her sister had mastered them yet.

McKenzie went over to her closet and pulled out some shoes. She looked up to her sister to make sure they would match her dress. Sydney nodded with a smile and the little blonde sat down to begin putting them on. Sydney knelt by her sister and asked her again if she would need help. "Uh... lemme try. Momma was teachin' me." Sydney nodded and let her little sister try herself. McKenzie had a hard time with the first shoe and after a few attempts, looked sheepishly up at her big sister. "Maybe... just a wittle help." Sydney laughed lightly and leaned over to tie the shoelaces. She did it very slowly so McKenzie could watch how she tied them together, reciting the silly rhyme her mom used.

"After you cross them once, take one string and make the tree." Sydney took one lace and looped it loosely in one hand. Taking the other lace she said the next part, "Then the bunny goes around the tree," wrapping the lace around the loop," and then he jumps through the bunny hole." She drew the lace through the hole and pulled it tight. McKenzie's eyes followed every move intently and she nodded when her sister got done. She turned to her other shoe, and with a face screwed up in an adorable expression of concentration, attempted to replicate the same steps. She went very slowly, and after pausing slightly when she made the 'tree', she looped the lace around and pulled it through the hole. After tugging it tight, she turned and beamed up at Sydney, eyes sparkling with her accomplishment.

Sydney smiled back at her and congratulated her, "Good job, Kenzie-bear! Momma would be very proud of you. Now we gotta head downstairs and get ready to leave."

McKenzie nodded and stood up. When she got to the door of her room she paused and looked up at Sydney. "We going go say bye to Momma right?" she asked quietly.

Sydney took her little sister's hand in hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. "Yeah, we're gonna go say bye, but she's not all gone, remember?" McKenzie put her free hand above her heart, like she remembered Sydney doing, when she heard her sister's words. Sydney nodded when she saw the action. "Always, Kenzie-bear." _Now if only I could convince Dad of that..._

Her sister stayed with her hand over her heart for a little bit, then she tugged on Sydney's hand as they left her room and descended the stairs together. Their dad was sitting on the couch in the living room staring at nothing, his shoulders slumped and his hands resting uselessly at his sides. "Dad," Sydney said. He didn't seem to hear her and just kept staring at nothing.

"Daddy?" McKenzie asked after her sister. She got no response out of him either.

Sydney let go of McKenzie's hand and told her quietly, "Why don't you go ahead and get in the car, Kenzie. I'll get Daddy." McKenzie nodded and trotted off toward the front door. Sydney turned back to her dad and narrowed her eyes. "Dad," she said a little more sharply. No movement. She went over to the couch and shook her dad. "Dad!"

He jumped at her touch and jerked his head up to look at her. He flinched slightly when their eyes connected, but shook his head and stood up quickly. "Sorry, honey, I must have been zoned out." He wiped the back of his hand across his face and then looked at his omni. "We have to be there soon, you and your sister ready?"

"Yeah, Kenzie's already in the car, we were just waiting for you."

"Well I'm ready so let's head out." Jake walked past his daughter and went through the front door. Sydney frowned slightly, confused for a brief moment as to why her dad hadn't heard them. She shook her head and brushed the thought aside. _We're all really tired and kind of overwhelmed, it makes sense that he'd zone out every now and then. _She left the couch and followed her dad out to the skycar. Once she got in and made sure McKenzie was buckled in properly, her dad started the car and they took off for the funeral.

-.-.-.-.-

They pulled up to the church where the funeral was being held and they all got out of the car; Sydney helped her sister get out of her car seat. Other people were already milling around and some were entering the church to get their seats.

Their family wasn't really religious by any means, but Hannah had considered herself Christian. She believed in the idea that there was a higher being who created everything and that there was a heaven and a hell. Some people who didn't know her very well thought that her belief was why she was so caring to everyone; she was trying to prove she could get into heaven. Anyone who had ever had one conversation with Hannah knew that wasn't true, and many people chastised and went off on the few who thought Hannah was only kind because her salvation depended on it.

No, Hannah was the way she was not because she wanted to get into heaven or please God, but because it was just who she was. She would tell people it was how God made her, but those who didn't believe in God thought that she was giving the big man too much credit; they thought Hannah was way too good for even God to have created her. She just smiled at those people and continued being who she was.

The church the funeral was being held at was the church that Hannah would drag her family to on the big Christian holidays of Easter and Christmas. She would occasionally go other times by herself, but was not a permanent member. The church had been built midway through the 20th century, and because it was such a beautiful building, had been cared for and renovated ever since. About 40 years ago, the church had started to fall behind building regulations set in 2145 and the city board of committee's had been afraid they were going to have to tear it down. The people of the city had been in an uproar over the news, even those who didn't attend the church, because the building had been such an integral and central part of the city for over 200 years.

The city went on an intense fundraising campaign to raise enough money to pay a local construction company to 'renovate' the church and make it up to city building regulations. It would have been almost impossible to fix all the flaws that the building had, so they sort of rebuilt the church from the ground up, but they kept it looking the exact same. The insides of the building were completely redone as the construction company put in all the new safety features and building parameters, but they built up the outside to make it look exactly like it had when it was built in 1956.

The entirety of the outside of the building was built in warm, light brown stone. Towards the front corner of the church, a towering parapet rose into the sky, and towards the top, an assortment of different sized bells could be seen inside. The bells no longer functioned, used more for the aesthetics of the building, but loudspeakers were built into the tower that replicated the sounds perfectly.

There was a large but short stair case that spanned the length of the front of the church and led to the entrance of the building. They leveled off in a short courtyard area where two separate sets of double doors opened into the interior of the building. The doors were built of dark hardwood and had intricate designs carved on either side. The handles were made of steel and were made to look as if they were gold.

Above the doors was a large, ornate stained glass window. It was made of five arched panels, those in turn split up into hundreds of smaller facets, that were each 5 feet wide and 20 feet tall. There wasn't a specific or obvious image created by the glass, but the main part of the piece was situated off-center in the upper left corner of the window and was a sort of starburst that had rays of pale yellows and oranges shooting outward down the panels. Haloed rings of golden browns stretched away from the center and the back ground of the image peaked out with deep blues and pale purples.

And as impressive as the window was on the outside, viewing the glass from the inside was breath taking. Whenever the sun would shine through the panels, it bathed the interior of the church in a mixture of golden warmth and cool blue. The church had been specifically built facing west so that the evening light could be reflected through the windows as the sun descended from the sky. Many people would wander into the church on any given weekday and just sit inside to bask in the calming colors.

Because the church was such an icon in the city, there was always staff working in the church and the doors were kept open until 6 in the evening to allow the public access to the building. Sydney knew her mom enjoyed going to the church sometimes to just sit and be at peace. She had gone with her on a few occasions, but she couldn't sit without doing anything for very long. She usually ended up wandering about the church looking at everything.

The inside of the church was beautiful as well. The doors from the outside led into a foyer that was bigger in the middle, and then thinned somewhat and wrapped around the large middle room of the church. Multiple sets of wide double doors all led into the center and main part of the building, the nave, where the congregation would gather for services. The entirety of the floor in the nave was covered in a deep red carpet and the walls were a light cream. The wood of the pews was made of light birch wood and was cushioned with a slightly darker brown canvas. The ceiling was high and vaulted, giant wooden beams crisscrossing across the vast expanse.

The side walls of the central chamber were lined with door-sized openings that led back out into the foyer and continued on to all the classrooms and administrative offices of the church. It also led to the second floor which held more rooms for classes and a large gathering area for the youth. Hannah had tried to get Sydney plugged into the stuff for the kids but she hadn't really shown any interest.

The Shepard family ascended the steps in front of the church, different friends and acquaintances stopping them along the way to offer their condolences. After a few minutes they made it to the front doors and her dad started quietly chatting with one of the ministers of the church. Sydney was leaning over and straightening up McKenzie's dress when she heard someone call her name.

"Hey, Sydney!"

She looked up from her little sister toward the owner of the voice and saw to people coming up the steps toward her. Hearing her name made her thoughts darken somewhat as she remembered that the last words her mom ever said had been her name. But, even on this day of sadness and the thoughts in her head, a small smile graced her features as she waved at the two coming to greet her.

"Hey, guys," she called to them as they stepped up next to her. "Thanks for coming."

One of the two, a shorter female with a shock of black hair and dark eyes, shook her head and smiled. "Duh, crazy, of course we'd be here. Notwithstanding the fact that we're your best friends, Momma H meant a lot to us, too. Even if we weren't friends with you we'd _still_ come."

Sydney smiled ruefully and hugged the girl tightly. "I know, I know. I'm still glad you came, Julia."

"Anytime, Syd," Julia Kaleen said, as she embraced her best friend back. She felt an infinitesimal twitch from the body she was hugging when she said the name, but didn't think too much of it.

Someone clearing their throat interrupted their hug. "I'm here too, you know," the second person said with a raise of their eyebrow, a small smile tugging at their mouth.

Sydney smirked as she pulled away from Julia and turned to the speaker. He was much taller than both of the girls and had short, straw blonde hair that barely touched his ears. His eyes were a light hazel color with flecks of gold, green, and dark brown spread around the edges. He was looking at the two girls with his arms crossed in mock indignation, pretending he was deeply offended by their ignorance of him.

"Hush, dummy. Don't be jealous that she likes me more," Julia teased, stepping back from the hug.

He laughed at her statement, breaking his facade. "Yeah right, Kaleen. Keep dreamin'."

Sydney laughed at the banter between the two and went up to the boy and wrapped her arms around his waist, laying her head on his chest. "Of course I know you're here, and I'm very, very glad," she said as she looked up at him. She reached up on her toes and kissed him lightly. He held her close and leaned down into the kiss. "I wouldn't have you anywhere else, Tucker," she said as she broke their embrace.

Yes, Tucker Rolden. The same boy who had made fun of her in kindergarten when she said she wanted to go into space. The same boy who she had biotically pushed when she first discovered her powers. The same boy who had become a close friend with her and Julia as they grew up. That same boy was now her boyfriend of 3 months.

"Um, ew? PDA people," Juila snorted and pretended to cover her eyes.

"Really, Julia? Child much?" Sydney laughed. But she did pull away from Tucker, it was a funeral after all.

"Oh, shut it. Just don't want you scarring the good people. Plus, this is a church, isn't that like, a sin or something?"

Tucker rolled his eyes at that. "Julia, you're an idiot. People get married in churches. If kissing in a church was a sin, half the world would be damned."

The raven haired girl pretended to think really hard about that, as if she was seriously considering his logic. She sighed in mock resignation, "Oh, alright. I guess your logic does make sense." However, she looked over at McKenzie and grinned, "But you wouldn't want to fry your littler sister's brain though, now would you?" She leaned over to Kenzie and whispered loudly to the little girl, "I bet you thought Tuck-Tuck and sissy kissing was gross too, huh?"

McKenzie giggled and nodded. She had been watching the three friends interact and had made an 'icky' face when her sister and Tucker kissed. Julia had seen the look and it was part of the reason she had made fun of them, to help McKenzie out. And, she just loved giving them a hard time; their relationship was the classic 'best friends who started dating' type and she had plenty of fun messing with them about it.

Sydney leaned over and kissed the top of her sister's head. "Sorry 'bout that, Kenzie-bear. I'll try not to kiss Tuck when you're around." She winked at Kenzie when she pulled away and the little girl smiled up at her and nodded.

"Okay, sissy."

Tucker chuckled at the exchange and looked down at his omni-tool. "Hey guys, we should probably head in and get some seats, it's going to start soon," he told the girls.

Everyone grew a bit somber as they remembered why they were all there. Their silly conversation had helped distract them from the reality of the day, but now they knew they couldn't ignore it for any longer. Sydney nodded and took her little sister's hand as they headed through the church doors, Tucker and Julia following behind them. There was no sign of her dad or the minister he had been talking to so Sydney assumed he had already found his way inside.

They walked through the foyer, which was almost empty of people as most had found their seats already, and into the central part of the church. Sydney led her sister and her two friends down the central aisle of the pews as she headed towards the front. She felt a light tug on her other wrist and turned to look behind her.

"Hey, our parents are down this row," Tucker said quietly, indicating where his and Julia's parents were seated. He squeezed her hand warmly and reassuringly for a few moments and smiled encouragingly at Sydney. She appreciated the gesture and brought his hand up to her lips, gently kissing the back of his hand before letting go and continuing up the aisle. He and Julia slipped down the row and took their seats by their parents.

Still holding McKenzie's hand, Sydney made her way to the front of the pews. When they reached the front she was surprised to see that her dad wasn't sitting there. Getting her sister situated in her seat, she craned her head around to see if he was still talking to someone. Not seeing him, she began to wonder even more where he was. _The service is about to start, where is he?_

She saw the last few people filter in and take their seats and there wasn't anyone else standing around. However, just as she started to worry and debate whether or not to go look for him, she felt him slide in next to her just as the minister who was going to lead the service entered the nave. She gave him a concerned look but he just shook his head and tried to smile at her. Even as he turned away from her and faced forward to listen to the minister, who had started talking, she kept looking at him for a few more moments. She could tell he wanted her to forget about the whole thing by his dismissive gesture.

She sighed internally and flicked her eyes to the front, trying to ignore the little nagging feeling of confusing in the back of her head. She just shook her head slightly and shoved the weird sensation away. _Give him a break, it's only been 3 days since mom died, he can act however he needs to to get through this._

She slipped her hand into her father's larger one and gave it a comforting squeeze. He looked back at her and smiled a little more genuinely at his eldest and squeezed back. Sydney looped her other arm around McKenzie's shoulders and pulled the little girl close to her. The little blonde snuggled up into her sister's side with a quiet sniffle and an attempted smile. Being in the church with the minister and the people and the atmosphere of sadness was taking its toll on the little girl. Sydney held tightly to both her family members and prayed to the God her mom had believed in that they would be able to live through this; prayed that she would be able to keep her promise even though it felt like she was being pulled apart.

-.-.-.-.-

A single tear fell and splashed onto the smooth, gleaming wood and balled up into a small, glistening orb. Sydney wiped it away with a trembling finger and laid her whole hand on the smooth wood.

The coffin was a deep chestnut color and shone brightly with its beautifully polished finish. They had decided to have a closed casket for the funeral at the church because of how frail and withered Hannah had looked thanks to the ravaging cancer. They didn't want people to look at the shade of what Hannah had become and forget about how vivacious she had been in life. That was also part of the reason that, before she had died, Hannah had insisted that people _not_ wear black to her funeral. Hannah avoided wearing the color at all costs if she could because she never liked all the dark thoughts and emotions that attached themselves to the dreary color. She had asked that people wear brightly colored clothes to her funeral because she didn't want the day to be cloaked in the dark color. Even in her death Hannah had been trying to cheer people up.

The Shepard's had decided to have a large service at the church building because of how many lives Hannah had touched. There would have been no way to fit the huge amount of people that were going to attend at the small graveyard that had been chosen as Hannah's final resting place. They were going to have a much smaller and shorter service there with only their family and their close friends.

That is why Sydney didn't feel the need to say too much just then as she rested her hand on the dark wood. She knew there were a great number of people in line behind her who wanted to say their final goodbye's to Hannah Shepard, so she didn't dawdle by the casket for too long.

She took a deep breath and trailed her fingers along the wood before she turned away and descended the few stairs of the raised area the casket was placed on. She wove her way through the crowd of people, looking for Tucker and Julia, accepting hugs and kind words as she passed through the throng.

Right as she entered the foyer, she saw Julia standing with Tucker's family and the Kaleen's standing a bit more off the side. When her boyfriend made eye contact with her, he waved her over. As soon as she got within arm's-length of the group, Mrs. Rolden enveloped Sydney in a tight hug. The brunette felt a little tension ease out of her body as she hugged her boyfriend's mother tightly. Abigail Rolden was like a second mother to Sydney and the maternal feeling she felt in those arms helped lessen the huge hole in her heart.

"That service was beautiful, darling," Mrs. Rolden said. "I know Hannah would have loved it." With a final squeeze she released her son's girlfriend and kissed her lightly on the forehead. "And she would be so proud of you for those loving words you spoke."

Sydney blushed slightly from the compliment and her eyes glistened a bit from the ache she felt when she stood up and spoke about her mom. "I just... let it kind of pour out. I don't really remember much of it, though." It had been one of the hardest things she had done to walk up to the podium and not fall apart into a sobbing mess in front of everyone. She hadn't talked for long because her emotions began to choke her words, but apparently she had said some great things about her mom. The ache she felt kind of interfered with her memory of what she said, but she didn't really care, her mom was still gone and a few words wouldn't change that.

She felt a warm hand slip into hers and she looked up at Tucker. "Syd, it was great. You were great and your mom would have loved it." He leaned down and kissed her cheek gently and wiped away a stray tear with his other hand. He had noticed a flash in her eyes when he said her name and he wondered what it was about. But she smiled at him, a small smile, obliviously, but very real, and he forgot about the flash.

Sydney again felt the twinge go through her body when she heard her name, but tried to ignore it. It had been happening more and more the past few days since her mother's death and she had tried to push it from her mind, which, because it was her name and people addressed her with it, was exceedingly difficult.

She knew the reason she flinched every time she heard her name was stupid, but it didn't make the reason go away. The last words her mother had spoken flitted through her mind again and again.

_"Okay... sleep... Syd..."_

Every single time someone said her name it snapped her brain back to those last words and it made her think of her mom. It was unfortunate that her _name_ was linked back to her mother's death because it wasn't something she could escape. If her mom had said something like 'goodnight', she could have avoided the word and told people around her not to say it. She couldn't exactly tell people to stop using her own damn _name_ now could she.

_"Syd..."_

So now, whenever anyone said her name, she was thrown back into the memory and the pain of her mother's last few moments of life. She knew it was an idiotic thing that she allowed to hold power over her, but the brain will do what the brain wants to do, and Sydney hadn't found a way to disassociate the two things yet.

It helped that around the house her dad still didn't talk much and McKenzie just called her 'sissy' most of the time. When her sister had first started calling her that it had kind of annoyed her for a little while, but now she was eternally thankful that it had stuck because she didn't want to be reminded of her dead mother every time her sister talked to her.

"Hey, there's your dad and your sister," Julia's voice broke her from her thoughts. Sydney turned and watched her dad approach their group holding McKenzie in his arms. The blonde girl had a few errant tears on her face and her eyes were slightly red, but Sydney could tell she was trying to be a big girl and not let her emotions explode out of her. _You and me both, Kenzie-bear, you and me both._

-.-.-.-.-

Their group, the Shepard's, Rolden's and Kaleen's, all headed to the cemetery where Hannah Shepard was going to be buried. They were meeting there with a few more family members and close friends to say their final goodbyes and to look one more time upon the face of the woman they all loved so much.

Her cousin Mindy was there and her great aunt Cali both arrived about the same time they did. Mindy was about 7 years older that Sydney and, in actuality, was her second cousin on her dad's side. Mindy's father had been Jake's brother, and his wife had left him and Mindy, who was only a todler at the time, when he joined the Alliance Military. Mindy's dad, John Shepard, had died not too long ago on a mission when she was 19 and she'd been living by herself in New York ever since.

Aunt Cali was the sister of Sydney's late grandmother on Hannah's side. Both her grandparents on her maternal side had died when Sydney was young, right before McKenzie had been born. They had been older in years when they had had Hannah and she was an only child, so Cali was her only living relative from Hannah's side.

Along with Mindy and Cali, a few other family friends had shown up too. Not including Julia and Tucker's families, there was Jake's best friend Kenny, who had been the best man at the Shepard's wedding, and his wife Natalie, and Hannah's best friend Karin Chakwas. Before she had moved offworld, she had been over at the Shepard's house quite often and both Sydney and McKenzie loved having her around. Since Hannah had no sibling for the girls to have aunt's, Karin had filled that role. McKenzie loved to call her 'Auntie Chawas' when she had been really little and it had kind of stuck.

All of them had arrived at the cemetery and they, along with the pallbearers, slowly made their way to the plot and the headstone where Hannah was to be laid to rest. They all gathered around and because of their colorful attire, if it weren't for the casket resting above the deep hole in the ground, it would have been easy for a stranger to think they were just meeting by the grave of a deceased loved one for a visit and not the actual funeral.

The weather even seemed to be on board with the idea. Even though it had been rainy the day before, it was almost as if Hannah's spirit had completely wiped away all the rain clouds in the sky the night before. Sydney wouldn't put it past her mom to have somehow made sure that the day was as bright and sunny as possible in order to try and brighten the spirits of those attending her funeral.

As everyone got arranged around the grave site, people began recalling stories about Hannah and her goodness. Even while people were crying, it was impossible not to smile at the stories because of how kind and generous Hannah was. Her ability to care for others had a way of cutting through their tears and helped them remember her for how she had been before the cancer had struck.

When most everyone there had spoken and she felt like things were coming to a close, Sydney decided to speak up one last time. "My mom was one of the most amazing people I have ever met. Granted, I knew her my whole life, but I never met anyone else who even came close to her level of love." Sydney swallowed some tears but pressed on. She didn't have much to say, but it still felt like she needed to say the words. "I know that a lot of kids say that they have the best parents in the world, and in some way that's true, becasue no one can really be impartial on that front. But I can. I can probably guarantee that my mom was one of the best mom's in the whole world - no, the whole universe. And along with being the best mom, she was also one of the singularly most caring people anyone who met her will ever meet. My mom had the gift of love and she spread it indiscriminately to everyone she ever met."

Sydney closed her eyes and allowed a few tears to slip out from under her lashes. She stepped forward and looked down onto the pale face of her mother's in the open casket. She reached out a hand and delicately caressed the side of her mom's cheek one last time. In a quieter voice she finished talking, "Momma, you were the brightest light that shined in all of our lives and life will be all the dimmer from your passing. But I know you loved all of us with all your heart, and because of that we will try to live up to your light. You were the best mom to me and Kenzie, the best wife to Dad, the best friend to those you cared about and the best woman that strangers would ever meet. You were love embodied and we will never, ever forget you."

She leaned down with tears freely streaming down her face and kissed her mom's forehead, whispering, "I love you, Momma," and then the casket was closed and Hannah's body was lowered into the ground of her final resting place.

Sydney stepped back over to her family and picked McKenzie up in her arms, who she knew needed to hold her big sister. She kissed the blonde's cheek and held her close. They both watched as the coffin was lowered into the ground and she heard the little voice of her sister by her ear, "Bye-bye, Momma." When the casket was all the way in the ground and they heard a slight thud as it hit the dirt floor, McKenzie turned and buried her face into dark brown hair and cried.

Sydney stroked her hair and cried right along with her, oddly enough finding solace in the sadness their shared together. No one else present was losing a mother, and her and McKenzie shared the exact same pain. Looking around at everyone else, Sydney watched the sadness manifest in different ways. Her eyes made a full sweep across the gathering but then she froze on a face that reflected pure agony.

She looked at her father and she felt like she was looking into another grave.

* * *

_A/N - The inevitable funeral scene :( I've been lucky enough to never attend a funeral of someone close to me so I'm not entirely sure how they happen. Hopefully I did the scene justice and captured the emotions that I thought would be present._

_And you also got to meet Julia and Tucker for the first time! A bit of anguish relief with them because Tucker helps distract Syd and Julia... well Julia is just Julia, I love her haha. I have a ton of fun writing their dialogue and you will get to see a lot more of them in the chapters to come._

_I'm using month and year time stamps for the next few chapters to help you guys keep up with the passage of time, because it will start to move a bit quicker after this chapter, and I hope to help you form a bit of a timeline in your heads. _


	6. You're Only a Kid Once

Chapter 6 - You're Only a Kid Once

_A week and a half after the funeral (October 2186)_

Sydney closed the cage door, latching it so it wouldn't fall open, and stood up slowly from her crouched position. She looked up and down the row of cages and made sure they were all latched or locked in some way. Some of the smarter animals were able to open up conventional latches and so they had electronic locks on their cage doors.

When she checked all the cages on that row and all the other rows in the room, she walked to the door and dimmed the lights down in the room so all the animals could sleep. Most of them were injured in some form or fashion and that made them tired enough to sleep, even if some of the animals didn't sleep in the dark normally.

She left the room and pulled up her omni-tool key so she could lock it behind her. She held her hand up to the locking mechanism for a few seconds until she saw the interface change from green to red. They'd unfortunately learned from experience that there were weird wackos out there who would sometimes try to get in and let all the animals out. After the first time everyone had come in to find all the animals roaming around outside their cages in the front rooms, they had had an advanced lock put on the door and keyed it to the omni-tools of only the people who worked there.

Sydney turned from the back door and went about the office cleaning up and putting everything in order before she left for the night. All of the doctors had left a while ago at closing time, but trusted Sydney enough by now to have her get all the animals put away in their cages and finish up any last minute things in the office.

Sydney had only been working for _Davidson Veterinarians_ for a few months, but had quickly proven to be a very diligent and hard worker. They'd had some reservations about hiring her because she had only been 14, but after her first few days she completely blew away their low expectations of her and quickly integrated herself as a very productive and essential member of the office.

She loved working with animals and felt that all animals had their own 'personality'. The secretaries just thought she was an overenthusiastic kid and humored her with the idea, but some of the vet techs and doctors would completely agree with her. You couldn't spend as much time around animals as they did and _not_ think that animals had unique quirks about them. Once the doctors realized how good she was with animals, any misgivings they might have had about her age were wiped away. She treated the animals gently and knew how to work with them so that neither human nor animal would get hurt.

Before Sydney had worked there, the techs and interns would move the animals around the office; from the owners to the back, from the back to the treatment rooms, to the bathing area, outside, etc. It wasn't exactly part of their actual job description, but someone had to do it. So when Sydney was hired, they were able to hand that job over to her. She was way too young and inexperienced to actually help in the treatment rooms, so when she started working there they sort of invented a name for the job position she did: _Animal Tender_. When she wanted to sound important to her friends she would tell them that she was an AT at the local veterinarian's office.

All in all, Sydney loved her job. She worked there a couple days a week after school and sometimes on weekends if they needed her, so she was left with a decent amount of free time. Which was good because most of her 'free time' was really just 'skyball time'. She hadn't let the fall and broken clavicle she had sustained when she was younger deter her from continuing to play.

She had started high school this year and had been ecstatic because it meant she could try out for the team. No one had expected a freshman to make the team and some of the returning players had snickered a bit when they saw her walk onto the field.

They hadn't laughed for long, though.

When Sydney saw some of the slack jawed looks of disbelief on the older kids faces she'd grinned and felt very proud of herself. She was better than a lot of the upperclassmen who were trying out. There will still people on the team who were better than her, but they had not expected some freshman to be as good as she was. She was the youngest to make it on the high school skyball team in a long time. It wasn't that other freshman weren't good, it was just that most of the time the team had such strong upperclassmen players that they didn't need to take anyone onto the team. And when seniors graduated, the kids who had tried out as freshman tried out again as sophomores and usually made it then.

Tucker hadn't even made it when they tried out together. She had been afraid that he would resent her for making it and not him, or that he would have been upset that a girl had beaten him, but neither of those things happened. He had been extremely excited for her and cheered her on at the games they'd had so far. They were only two and a half month into the school year so the season had just started.

Julia played skyball as well, but she hadn't felt like trying out for the school team since she knew she probably wouldn't have made it anyway. She played on a local club team, and after being cut at tryouts, Tucker played on her team as well.

Sydney finished putting everything away and was switching off the lights in the rooms as she cleaned up. She turned off the last light in the main office and headed out the front doors. She pulled up the same lock code on her omni and made sure the place was closed up tight. She went around the back of the building and unlocked her small hoverbike from the rack.

Her hoverbike was one of the lowest models you could get and it didn't go much faster than the average bicycle used to go in the 21st century. When she first asked her parents for one they had freaked out a little bit before she showed them the model and explained that it wasn't like an _actual_ hoverbike. They had gotten it for her 13th birthday and she used it quite a bit to get around. For a while she used her hoverboard when she needed to go places, but once she started seriously playing skyball, she didn't want to wear hers out or get it dinged up by using it outside of the sport.

Her dad hadn't been too thrilled that she rode her bike to work because it meant that when she left, it would be dark and she'd be riding by herself at night. For a little while he had dropped her off and picked her up, but once her mom started getting sick and he spent most of his time at the hospital, she'd convinced him that she'd be fine, pointing out that they didn't live that far from the office and it'd only take her 10 minutes to bike home.

She hopped on her hoverbike and turned it on with her omni, keeping still as it powered up and rose a few feet in the air. She turned onto the sidewalk and started heading toward her house. The wind blew softly in the night air and the quiet hum of the weak engine floated around her. A ways up in the sky she could see the skycars driving along and could faintly hear the traffic.

Since skycars had been implemented, not many people used the streets down below except for walking or running. It made things a lot safer for people and the number of pedestrian deaths from vehicles had dropped quite a bit in the last 100 years. There were still vehicle to vehicle accidents, that never changed, but things on the road had gotten a lot safer. In some of the newer and richer areas on earth, roads weren't even built as much because almost everyone had a skycar. But most of Earth still had the existing concrete roads that had been there before the discovery of the Mars archives and the introduction to the galactic community.

Lots of families still kept normal cars because they were a lot cheaper to buy and maintain than skycars. Skycar fuel was a little bit more expensive than car fuel, of which costs had dropped drastically once people found much cheaper and alternate forms of fuel than gasoline. A lot of kids learned how to drive both just because there were still a lot of places where it was common enough to see a car to merit the knowledge.

Sydney wondered what it must have been like for people to be completely constrained to the ground all the time and how insanely crowded it must have been. A lot of her friends all joked about how cool it would be to live back in those days, but she was adamantly glad she didn't. _They barely made it to the freaking moon,_ she thought, shaking her head. _How boring would it have been to not be able to travel across the galaxy and to be stuck on Earth your whole life?_

Not many of the kids who had been in Sydney's kindergarten class still wanted to be what they said they had wanted to be when they were little. They grew up and realized that being a princess or an actress or a superhero weren't really things that could be done. But her dreams never changed. She still desperately wanted to travel out into the stars and live somewhere other than Earth. But she was also old enough to realize that it wouldn't be on some crazy, hare-brained adventure like she thought it would be when she was 5. She realized you had to have a reason to go into space and so she'd been trying to figure out what she could do that would allow her to travel to the stars.

Daydreaming about far off planets and staring up into space, Sydney hadn't really been paying attention to where she was going, so when she started to veer off the sidewalk toward a tree, she didn't look down until she was almost hitting it. She yelped and yanked the handle bars of her hoverbike to the left, hoping to dodge the tree, but she had been too close to it. She managed to swerve the front end away from the tree, but the back end still hit the thick trunk. The impact jarred her from her seat and made her lose her grip on the handles and she fell off the bike.

She tumbled off and landed on her side with her elbow underneath her. Not only did the tree feel the need to get in her way and crash her bike, the roots also seemed to be conspiring against her because she fell on the lumpy things and banged her arm.

"Shi- Crap!" She yelled, rubbing her elbow. "Who the heck thought calling it the 'funny bone' was funny in any way!" She gingerly stood up and tried to brush the dirt and grass off her clothes. It had rained earlier in the day, so to make matters that much better, the dirt was nice and wet and stained her shirt and pants. "You have got to be kidding me..." she grumbled as she looked at the dirty splotches all over her clothes. _Freaking tree..._

After futilely trying to wipe off the dirt one more time, she looked around for her hoverbike in the darkness. Thankfully, hoverbikes had a security measure built in that powered down the engines if the omni-tool that activated it got more than a few feet away. It was designed so that, if the rider were to fall off, the bike wouldn't continue forward unmanned and cause any damage.

She saw her bike a few feet away and limped (the tree's one last parting gift to her; a sprained ankle) towards it to check if it had been damaged. She powered it back up and inspected it to make sure nothing had been knocked loose or broken. She noticed a lot of the paint on the back had been scuffed off by the tough tree bark and she hissed in annoyance, running her hand through her hair in an agitated motion. Too late she remembered that her hand had been covered in mud and that she had most likely streaked her hair with some excellent wet dirt.

"For the love of... Ugh!" she roughly rubbed her hands on the few clean patches of clothing she could find to try and get the dirt off her hands. Sure that she was thoroughly filthy, she climbed back on her bike with another huff of indignation and headed back toward her house.

-.-.-.-.-

She pulled up to her house and saw their skycar parked in front. _Dad's home_. She slowed down and pulled up to the garage and pressed the command on her omni-tool to open the big door. She drove in and parked her bike over in the corner and powered down the engine, carelessly draping the cover over it. Half the time she forgot to do it, but this time she didn't want her dad to see the messed up paint and have to explain what had happened. She figured he'd just been in his room so she could sneak upstairs to shower and change so she wouldn't have to tell him she had crashed.

Opening the door on the inside of the garage that led to her house as quietly as she could, she poked her head around to make sure no one was in the kitchen. McKenzie was probably already asleep upstairs since it was close to 9 pm, so she just had to make sure her dad wasn't there either. She took her shoes off so she wouldn't track mud anywhere and slipped into the kitchen once she saw the coast was clear. The kitchen light was on, so when she looked across the counters out into the living room, it was hard to make anything out. She didn't see anything that looked like the outline of a person though, so she figured she could dash across and make it up the stairs in seconds. Just as she was stepping through the archway into the den area, every light in the living room suddenly blazed on and blinded her.

"SURPRISE!"

"Gaahhh!" The sudden explosion of light and noise startled her so badly she tripped over her own feet and landed on her butt. "What the..?"

She looked around and saw all of her friends grinning and laughing at the expression on her face. Her dad was standing off behind the group of kids smiling faintly in the back and her little sister was jumping up and down clapping her hands with delight.

"I told you guys she would freak out," she heard Julia say from somewhere, amusement quite evident in her voice. The girl was short and was lost behind some of the taller kids.

"Happy Birfday, sissy!" McKenzie yelled. She ran over to Sydney, intent on giving her a hug, but stopped short when she saw the mud all over her sister. "Why you all dirty?" She asked confusedly, wrinkling her nose at the dirt.

Sydney climbed back to her feet and grinned sheepishly at her dad before she looked at McKenzie to answer her. "Sissy was silly and fell off her hoverbike on the way over here."

She glanced up quickly and saw her dad raise an eyebrow in question at her confession and she shrugged her shoulders a little and laughed ruefully.

Julia snorted at the admission and laughed at Sydney. "How the fu-" a glare from the older sister made her snap her mouth shut. "Uhhh, _heck_ did you fall off that thing? My grandma can move faster. On her walker," Julia smirked.

"Oh yeah, Kaleen, because that time you ate it on your hoverboard was so smooth?" one of the other kids taunted her.

"Aww shut up, Skyler. That fu- freaking cat came out of nowhere!" she shot back indignantly. "Besides, at least I didn't come up looking like the wrong end of a mudslide like Dirthead over here," she said, gesturing at the mess all over Sydney.

Sydney cleared her throat loudly. "_Dirthead_ is standing right here, thank you very much." She looked around at all the kids in her house. "What are you guys even doing here?"

Julia looked at her like she was an invalid. "Did you knock your head when you decided to roll in the mud? It's your birthday, idiot, hence the whole 'surprise' bit."

Sydney rolled her eyes at her short friend. "Oh yeah, I totally forgot, thanks for reminding me! You're such a great friend." Her tone dripped amused sarcasm before she snorted. "But I asked what you were doing here because I specifically remember telling you guys I _didn't_ want to do anything for my birthday."

"Ha! Like Julia ever listens to anything you say," a tall girl in the back said with a laugh.

Sydney pretended to sigh dramatically and closed her eyes while putting her hand against her forehead. "Why do I get the crazy shrimp as a friend," she said, teasing her friend with the nickname. Julia really could care less that she wasn't tall, and gave as good as she got when the short jokes came out.

"Yeah, yeah sheep herder, get over yourself."

Sydney raised an eyebrow at her friend. "Sheep herder am I? At least I can see over the consol of a skycar."

"I can see plenty fine. At least I have a brain between my ears instead of wool."

"Really? Wool? That was very original, Juila," Sydney laughed.

Julia had the decency to look slightly abashed at the terrible joke. "Well maybe it was-"

"Jesus! Will you two shut up?" a voice yelled out from somewhere behind the group of kids and beyond the corner of the wall. "Kaleen, you _suck_ at the execution part of this surprise." Tucker rounded the corner carrying something in his arms and from what Sydney could tell, it was just a big, nondescript box.

"Oh, shut it, _Tuck-Tuck_," Julia said, laughing at the flicker of annoyance that flashed across his face when she used McKenzie's nickname for him. "I couldn't just let myself be insulted by sheep girl over here, even if it is her da- dang birthday."

_Good lord, Julia, can you seriously not go an entire sentence without the need to swear,_ Sydney laughed to herself.

Ignoring Julia, Tucker walked the rest of the way into the room and set the box on the floor before walking over to Sydney. Ignoring the mud and dirt, he leaned down and gave her a small but sweet peck on the lips. The rest of the kids in the house gave wolf whistles and catcalls at the display. Sydney blushed and pulled away, but intertwined her fingers with Tucker's so he knew she wasn't ashamed of his affection. He smiled at her and then looked up to the group and gave an exaggerated wink. Everyone laughed and she just rolled her eyes.

"_Any_ways, before short stuff over here derailed the whole thing," a scoff from Julia, "we know you didn't want to do anything, but we figured we'd ignore you and surprise you anyway." Gone unsaid was also the fact that they wanted to cheer her up and distract her from the constant grief her mother's death had left behind.

Sydney squeezed his hand and smiled at them all warmly. "Well... I guess I'm glad you ignored me, this is pretty great."

"'Nother supwise, 'nother supwise!" the little blonde girl squealed excitedly.

Her older sister laughed and ruffled her hair. "It doesn't really work like that, Kenzie-bear. Once I'm surprised I can't be _un_-surprised."

The little girl shook her head. "No, no. Tuck-Tuck tell sissy. 'Nother supwise."

Tucker chuckled at McKenzie and nodded. "She's right, there is _one_ more surprise." He let go of her hand and went back to the box he had set on the floor. "I saw this and told Julia about it, and when we mentioned it to everyone they all agreed you had to have it."

Sydney tried to figure out what could possibly be in the box. _What could they all have totally and completely agreed on?_ she thought. _Maybe it's skyball stuff? I guess that's something obvious about me that I would like and they would all know about._

Tucker pulled the lid off the box and set it down on the floor. He was grinning and he beckoned her over with his hand. McKenzie could barely restrain herself from excitement and she was wiggling and bouncing up and down on her toes. Everyone else had big smiles on their faces and Julia was just looking at her, face beaming.

Sydney crossed the last few feet to the box and peering into it. She looked up quickly at all the faces around her and it dawned on her that it wasn't her devotion to skyball that they had agreed on. It was the _other_ thing in her life that she loved dearly that they had thought about.

Nestled at the bottom of the box, in amongst warm blankets, was a furry, gray body. She reached her arms down slowly and gently wrapped her hands around the warm bundle of fur and pulled it up out of the box. In her hands was a fluffy puppy that had predominantly grey fur with a few flecks of darker gray and lighter tan scattered in it. Its face was scruffy, the ends of its sticking every which way because it had been curled up in the blankets. It had a patch of white on its chest that looked like a splat of paint in the shape of an asymmetrical butterfly. A couple of its toes had white fur on them as well. Its eyes blinked at Sydney a couple of times and she saw that it had extremely dark brown, almost black, irises. It had a pair of cute, short, floppy ears hanging down its head that were almost tan at their base.

Sydney didn't realize that she'd been staring at the dog and hadn't said anything since she picked it up out of the box. "Hello, earth to Sydney?" she heard Julia's voice call out.

The name snapped her attention away from the dog and she focused on the dark haired girl's face. "Uh, sorry, what?"

"So can we assume from the way you went MIA there that you're falling madly in love with the little guy? Or should we take it as a sign that you hate it?" Julia said with sarcasm in her voice. "I'm sure we could find it another home."

Sydney clutched the dog to her body, instantly protective of it, and glared at her best girl friend. "You try and take this little baby from me and I'll fight you, Kaleen."

"Whoo-ho-ho, mama dog's got some bite," Julia laughed. "Relax, sheep-head, I was kidding."

Sydney just hmph'ed at her and absentmindedly started stroking the puppy's head. Turning to Tucker she asked, "So where did you guys find this little guy? Or girl, I guess." She hadn't looked to check what gender the dog was. After lifting the puppy up slightly she had her answer, just as Tucker answered her.

"Her. I was at the mall the other day with my mom looking for some clothes and I saw a flyer on a bulletin board that was advertising free puppies. It had a couple of numbers you could pull off so I grabbed one and called it after I left the mall. The guy who had the dogs said he still had a few more left so I went over to his house to look them over."

"How old is she?" Sydney interrupted. "And did the owner get all the proper shots for the puppies before he started giving them away?"

"Yup. I asked him about the shots and even asked to see a record of them." Sydney gave him a look of slight surprise when he said that. "Hey, don't look at me like that. I _do_ listen when you talk about animal stuff you know," he said defensively. At her raised eyebrow he added, "Mostly."

She patted the tall boys arm. "Well good job, Tuck, she's adorable," she pause and looked at his face, "but do you have _any_ idea what kind of dog this is?"

Tucker laughed nervously and scratched the side of his nose. "Uh... not... exactly?"

His girlfriend groaned and shook her head. "Jeez, Tuck." He smiled sheepishly at her.

"So... I'm guessing you know what kind of dog she is?"

Sydney sighed and rubbed her eyes. "Yeah, Tuck, I do. And wouldn't ya' know you got me a freaking _Irish Wolfhound_! Tucker, she's going to be huge! Do you have any idea how incredibly _ big_ these dogs get?"

"I'm guessing... big?" he smiled nervously.

She mumbled under her breath that sounded something like 'Oh for the love of...'. "Tucker, big is an understatement. When she's full grown she could probably stand on her hind legs with her paws on your shoulder and look _down_ on you."

All he could say was, "Oh."

Sydney just laughed and shook her head. _Oh, I guess I should see if dad's okay with this._ She looked to where she had seen her dad when she first walked in but she didn't see him. _He must have slipped away when all the banter was going on._

Tucker saw her glance around and figured she was look for her dad. "Don't worry, I already asked him if it was okay for us to get you a dog. He said that before your mom got, uh, sick, they had actually planned on getting you guys another dog since Koda died. I guess the idea kinda got put on the back burner after..."

"Yeah."

"Sorry."

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, almost as if she were trying to gather up all the painful memories and let them slip out of her body. She didn't want to be depressed after her friends had put all this effort into making her birthday special. She put on a smile and, while the sadness didn't completely evaporate, she tried to push the dark memories away and just enjoy the rest of the night.

"Thank you. All of you. She is adorable and I am very excited to have her." She kissed the top of the puppy's head for emphasis and held her close.

"Sissy, cans I pet the puppy?" her little sister asked with adorable eyes.

"Of course you can, Kenzie-bear." She knelt down so the girl could reach the dog. "Just be careful and gentle, she's sleeping." McKenzie softly stroked the dog's ear and a big smile crossed her face.

"She so soft!" she said in wonder. A big yawn cracked her face and she tried to stifle it with a little hand.

The older sister laughed and said, "I don't think the puppy is the only one who is sleepy."

"I's not," big yawn, "sleepy," McKenzie tried to argue.

"Come on, sleepy-head, let's get you to bed." Sydney stood up and tried to hold her new puppy in one hand while taking her sister's hand, but Tucker took McKenzie's hand instead.

"Here, I'll take her up. You stay down here. Plus, there's still a few more presents that we brought."

Sydney smiled at him and kissed his cheek. "Thanks." She resettled the puppy in her arms and turned back to her group of friends as Tucker took her sister up the stairs.

"So, since the pup was really the main present, the rest of us just bought a few things to get you started with her," said her friend Clara. A couple of her friends pulled smaller present from behind their backs and she set the puppy back in the box so she could open them.

Her friends ended up getting her a pink collar and a black leash that would work until her puppy started growing, a couple of chew toys, one bag of dog food to get her started, and two metal bowls for the food and water. She got through opening half the presents by the time Tucker came back down from putting Kenzie to sleep.

After she opened all of her presents and thanked all of her friends, they brought out the cake and ice cream they'd been hiding in the fridge and freezer and they hung out for a couple more hours, well into the night.

That night was a welcome break from the sadness that had been infused into her life since her mother's death and funeral. And while the oppressive sorrow never really fully left her, sneaking up on her especially when she heard her name said out loud, her spirits had at least been lifted by her friends and she was able to have some real fun for the first time in weeks.

And now that she had her new puppy to look after, she figured the dog would really be able to help her focus on something other than the melancholy that her life had become.

It worked for a little while, but the shadow of her mother's death continued to worm its way through her family.

* * *

_A/N - I'll explain more later on how I envision skyball being played, I still haven't completely figured it out myself. Probs going to be a mix between quidditch and soccer... Haha we'll see._

_I felt like this story needed a little bit of a happy chapter, and it felt nice to write, plus you all deserve break ;) Sorry if some of that banter and name calling was ridiculously cheesy, I'm not the best at dialogue, so hopefully it will improve haha. Oh and I know it's pretty unrealistic that Tucker wouldn't have asked what kind of dog the puppy was, but I wanted Syd to 'berate' him lol. _


	7. The Darker Side of Death

_I'm in my last week of classes, one week of finals after that and I'm moving into my new house, so updates might be a little bit slower than usual until school lets out. But summer is right around the corner! Alright; Onward!_

* * *

Chapter 7 - The Darker Side of Death

_One month after the funeral (November 2186)_

The Irish Wolfhound that Sydney got for her birthday had grown so rapidly that if she hadn't been expecting it, it might have startled her. Large dog breeds have an incredible growth rate when they are puppies since they have so much more to grow into than smaller breeds. It was a really good thing that her job at the vet's office paid her above minimum wage because the puppy went through dog food like a wild fire.

The morning after the surprise party her friends threw for her, Sydney and her sister sat down with the pup and went to work deciding a name for her. Her little sister kept wanting to name her cutesy names like 'Princess' or 'Daisy', but the older sister knew that sweet names like those would seem awkward once the dog grew to her full size. Of course watching the puppy in front of them roll around on the floor at her current size, it was a little bit hard to image how incredibly _big_ she was going to get. Eventually they decided on the name Sadie. It was still girly enough for McKenzie, but mature and sensible enough for Sydney.

Things settled into a routine with Sadie pretty quickly. Sydney wanted to get her kennel trained as early as possible so that she could leave her in there while she was at school. Her dad went in to work most days and McKenzie had started kindergarten so no one was home while Sydney was at school. She made a point to let Sadie out right before she left for school and always raced back home after school as well. There had been the first few initial accidents and messes, but Sadie learned pretty quickly, and as she grew in size, so did her ability to control her bladder.

Once Sydney was happy with Sadie's ability to not leave accidents in her kennel while she was at school, she dug out the child gates they had used when her little sister was a toddler and she set them up in the kitchen. She didn't trust Sadie not to wreck the house if she had free reign of it, so she started her off by confining her to the kitchen. She wanted to eventually be able to leave Sadie out of her kennel and in the house while she was home alone.

Sadie learned things very quickly and Sydney realized that she was a pretty smart dog. She didn't have the intelligence level of Poodles or Golden Retrievers, but she was a smart one for her breed. It was a relief as well as a challenge. Sydney was thankful because it meant she could teach Sadie quite a few tricks and that her dog would probably be good around McKenzie and not be too rough with her. Inversely, it meant that Sadie's cleverness would probably make her a bit of a trouble maker. As Sadie grew, Sydney knew she'd have to be very diligent in keeping her stimulated or her idle mind would cause trouble.

Having to dedicate so much time to Sadie and her training was a welcome and needed distraction from the rest of her life. But, as her puppy grew and started behaving more and more, Sydney had to spend less and less time focusing on Sadie and it let the rest of her life creep back in.

Up until her birthday her dad had been acting fairly normal, or as normal as a man could after losing his wife weeks before. Sydney thought that her mom might have actually gotten through to her dad and that he was trying to process and push through the pain of Hannah's passing. But the events following her birthday clued her in that her father was far from okay and that her mother's death was tormenting him.

-.-.-.-.-

_Sydney walked into the house on Friday afternoon relieved that it was finally the weekend. School had been annoyingly rough that week with loads of homework and, in her opinion, way more tests than were necessary. _

_She quickly made her way to the laundry room to let Sadie out of her kennel because she knew her puppy must be close to bursting by then. Sadie bolted to the back door, scratching and whining at it to be let out. After she let Sadie out, she grabbed a granola bar from the pantry and flopped down on the couch in the living room. She slouched there for a few minutes just enjoying the silence and the calm throughout the house._

_Silence? _

_She looked down at her omni to check the time and then looked up around the house with confusion swirling around in her head. On most Friday's her dad didn't have to go into work, or if he did he got off earlier, so he would go and pick his youngest daughter up from her school and both were usually home by the time Sydney got back from school._

Maybe he took her to get ice cream or something, _Sydney thought to herself. Just to make sure though, she quickly tapped out a few things on her omni-tool and called her dad to check in with him. After a minute and a half he still hadn't answered and she moved from slight puzzlement to slight apprehension. _Dad always has his omni with him...

_She decided to call McKenzie's school to see if they knew when her dad had picked her little sister up. She had to look up the number of the front office, but once she found it and called it the secretary picked up after a few seconds._

_"Little Tykes Kindergarten, how may I help you?" the receptionist answered cheerfully._

_"Hi, my little sister goes to school with you guys and I was just wondering if you could tell me when she got picked up today."_

_"What's your name, Miss?"_

_"Oh, right, sorry. I'm Sydney Shepard and my dad is Jake Shepard. McKenzie Shepard is my sister," she replied quickly._ Forgot to say your name, idiot.

_"Okay, give me one moment." There was a pause as the secretary looked up the information._

_"Well actually, Miss Shepard, it looks like your sister is still here, no one has come to pick her up yet."_

_"What? My dad was supposed to pick her up 30 minutes ago," Sydney said with surprise, her apprehension moving well past 'slight' at that point._

_"No, ma'am. She's in her classroom with her teacher right now."_

What the hell, Dad?_ "Um, alright. I can't drive yet and I haven't been able to get a hold of my dad yet. I know this is probably highly abnormal, but is there anyway someone could drop her off back at home?" Sydney asked. She had applied for her hardship license after her mom died because her dad worked, she worked, and she had a little sister who needed driving around, and she was pretty sure she would be granted it._

_"Hmm, maybe. Let me contact the principal and her teacher and I'll get back to you. Is it alright if I disconnect for a few minutes?" the secretary said._

_"Yeah, of course. Thank you very much."_

_"You're welcome, Miss. I'll call you back in a bit," the woman replied and then ended the connection._

_Sydney leaned back into the couch and rubbed her eyes in confusion. Where in the world was her dad? He'd left McKenzie at school for crying out loud._

_She heard scratching on the door that led to the yard so she got up off the couch and went to let Sadie back in. The ever growing puppy dashed into the house and skidded a bit on the kitchen tiles when she tried to stop. This wrought a small chuckle from Sydney as she scooped her dog up and carried her over to the couch. She sat back down and settle Sadie onto her lap and started petting her. "You know, you're not gonna be able to curl up in my lap for very much longer. You're going to crush me once you fill out." Sadie just wagged her tail at her master and affectionately licked the hand that was petting her. Sydney kissed the top of the furry little head and waited for the school to call back._

_Even though it was an unusual situation, the principal had agreed to Sydney's request and McKenzie's teacher was going to drive her to her house. She thanked the teacher profusely when they arrived at the house and told her she was sorry she had inconvenienced her so much. The teacher just waved off the thanks and apology and said she was happy she could help. She gave McKenzie a hug and then left the sisters._

_"You alright, Kenzie-bear?" Sydney asked her sister, taking her hand and leading them into the house. Of course Sadie had taken advantage of being left alone for mere minutes and had found a dish towel to attack. McKenzie just laughed as Sydney sighed heavily and went to discipline her dog._

_"Yah, I's alright, sissy," replied, still giggling at Sadie's antics._

_"'I'm' alright," Sydney corrected her sister. They had slowly started correcting the little girl when she said things wrong because her teachers told her that McKenzie was ready to start learning how to talk in a more advanced manner._

_"I'm alright," the little girl said again, and beamed when her big sister smiled and nodded at her. "But wheres was..." she stopped and started her sentence over. "But where... was Daddy? He usuwally pick me up."_

_Despite the fact that she was wondering the exact same thing and she was really worried about it, she still managed a small laugh at her sister's speech. She shook her head and reminded herself that her sister wouldn't just instantly know how to talk correctly when she started school. "'Picks'," she reminded her sister absentmindedly. "And I don't know, Kenz," Sydney said, "but I'm sure he's fine," she added quickly when she saw a slight frown of worry crease her sister's face._

_McKenzie thought about it for a bit and then shrugged. Her sister was always right, she was her big sister after all, and she knew everything. "Otay," she said, dismissing the subject easily enough. "Cans I play wif Sadie?"_

_Sydney laughed and nodded, not bothering to correct her sister's speech. She marveled at the ability of children to live in the moment and not worry about things. She went into the kitchen to make them both an afternoon snack and her thoughts turned darker. _Seriously, Dad... where are you?

-.-.-.-.-

Her dad had stumbled in much later that night, his eyes bloodshot and his usually clean shaven face showing it's five o'clock shadow. He shuffled into the living room intent on heading straight to his room and not realizing that anyone else was in the room. When Sydney had cleared her throat loudly it badly startled him.

He turned to face her, starting to open his mouth to explain where he had been, when their eyes met. Sydney saw her dad visibly flinch when their eyes connected and could almost sense the shiver that when through his body. _What the heck was that?_ she thought, troubled.

She thought he was going to say something but he just kept staring at her, a strangely haunted look in his eyes. She felt increasingly uncomfortable as the silence dragged on and squirmed on the couch. _Why is he looking at me like that? What is wrong with him?_

Desperate to break the silence, she cleared her throat again and spoke, "Dad..."

Jake jumped again at the sound of his daughter's voice, but it seemed to shake him from whatever strange daze he had been in. He swallowed and seemed to be working to speak when he finally opened his mouth. "Sydney..." her name came out as a weird, strangled sigh.

Now it was her turn to flinch. It didn't matter who said her name, or how they said it, it always made her cringe in remembered pain. Every time Sydney heard the two syllables of her name, all she heard was the way her mother's frail voice had spoken her name, and all the sadness from the night she passed away seemed to be condensed and agonizingly shot through her heart. _I guess we both still have issues._

Shaking her head to clear the memory, she turned and looked back at her dad, the anger and apprehension she felt earlier in the day washing over her. "Where were you all day? You were supposed to pick McKenzie up from school," she said angrily.

"I was busy," he mumbled.

"Busy?" she asked incredulously. "Dad! You _left_ Kenzie at school! I came home and neither of you were here. I had to call the freaking school and have her teacher drop her off . What the he-" she bit off her last remark and took in a sharp breath through her nose and let it out loudly from her mouth. It wouldn't do her any good to yell and wake her sister up. But she glared at her dad to get across how angry she was.

"Dad, I had to lie to Kenzie about where you were. I _lied_ to my little sister to cover your damn ass," her anger still slipped through, though, as she cursed at him. "I have _never_ lied to her! So you better have a freaking good reason to not have been there to pick her up _and_ to explain where you've been," she seethed.

"I... I'm sorry, honey, I didn't mean to be gone for so long." He closed his eyes and sighed heavily. "I just had a... hard day at work, that's all," he said weakly.

"So hard you couldn't answer your omni? Too hard you couldn't have at least called me ahead of time and told me I had to get McKenzie? Dad, that's not a good enough excuse to disappear all day!" she hissed quietly, still mindful not to wake her sister up.

"Look, I'm sorry, alright? It won't happen again." He turned and walked away from her towards his room.

"Dad-"

"I said it won't happen again. Now, I'm tired and I want to get some sleep. I'll see you in the morning, Sydney."

There was another flinch that she tried to ignore, and she just growled, "Fine." She scooped up a sleeping Sadie and went up to her room to get some sleep. Her last thought before falling asleep with Sadie cuddled up next to her was, _this better be the last time._

Unfortunately it wasn't.

-.-.-.-.-

In the weeks that followed, there continued to be days where her dad wouldn't answer his omni-tool and he would come stumbling into the house just like that first night. Every time it happened she covered for him to McKenzie, making up some excuse or another as to why their dad wasn't home when he was supposed to be. Thankfully, soon after that first incident, her request for a hardship license was granted. She had already taken the operating course for skycars so as soon as she got the license she could drive. Because of this, she was able to start picking McKenzie up from school on the days her dad couldn't or didn't.

It was getting increasingly frustrating for her to deal with her father's strange behavior. He never explained to her where he had been and she had to continue to lie to her sister. It twisted her up inside because she _hated_ having to deceive McKenzie. She had always been open and truthful with her sister, so this situations with her dad was wearing on her.

She was hanging out with Tucker and Julia one weekend and was unloading all of her frustrations on them.

"I just don't get it. What the hell could he possibly be doing that's more important than picking Kenzie up from school?" she objected. "Nothing he's used as an excuse is anywhere near believable."

Tucker rubbed her back sympathetically and kissed her temple. They were sitting on a couch at the Rolden house while Julia laid on the floor. "And you've tried talking to him every time he comes home?"

"Every time that I can stay up late enough to watch him try and sneak in, yeah," she answered. "And that's the other thing, he literally tries to sneak into the house like he's trying to not get caught! He's the adult for crying out loud! _I'm_ the one whose supposed to sneak in and out of the house, I'm the freaking teenager," she huffed angrily. "As a grown man and a parent he has no right to act so immature."

Julia gave a pointed look at Sydney, "When was the last time _you_ snuck out of your house, sheep-head?" Julia laughed and shook her head. "Get real, you two are way too goody-goody to sneak out unless _I_ force you guys to."

The blonde frowned down at Julia on the floor, "Yes, thank you for trying to corrupt me and my girlfriend to your wicked ways, Kaleen."

Julia just smirked at him. "You can play the 'holy' card all you want, Rolden, but we both know my ways are _way_ more fun. Just ask your little honey over here what we did last weekend when you had your stupid student council retreat."

Tucker turned and look at Sydney who blushed a bright red. "Uh... so you see..."

Julia just leaned over and patted her stuttering best friend's leg and grinned evilly at Tucker. "Let's just say, your girlfriend knows how to hold her liquor," she winked at Sydney who hid her face in her hands and groaned.

"Julia Kaleen, you got her DRUNK?!" Tucker shouted.

The petite girl just rolled around on the floor laughing at the look of shock and indignation on her big friend's face. It took a few moments before she could talk again because she had been laughing so hard. "Damn straight I got her drunk! It was a belated birthday gift from her bestie."

By then Sydney had somewhat gotten over her embarrassment at being found out and she laughed a little with Julia. "Tuck, it wasn't so bad. I didn't have that much to drink, and we crashed at Carla's house because her parents were gone. We didn't do anything stupid," she said to mollify her boyfriend.

Tucker sighed and pretended to pout. Sydney just laughed at him and kissed the pout off his mouth. Julia made gagging sounds and had to roll out of the way as Tucker aimed a kick at her. "Don't think you're off the hook. Corrupting my girlfriend," he muttered.

"Ha! She was my friend way before she was your girlfriend so you can't use that as a valid excuse," Julia smirked at him. She resettled herself on the floor and pulled up her omni-tool.

Sydney shook her head at her friends antics and leaned back into the couch. She grabbed Tucker's leg when she saw him aiming a kick at her best friend again. "Quit, Tuck," she laughed. "It wasn't bad, I promise. And..." she trailed off for a moment, the laugh fading from her face. "It was... kinda nice. It helped me forget about... everything. For a few hours, all the stupid crap my dad has been doing didn't really matter."

Tucker was going to put his arm around her when he sensed the humor in the air start to turn a bit more serious, but then Julia opened her mouth.

"Just hack his omni," Julia said nonchalantly as she tinkered around on her own.

Tucker groaned at his petite friend. "Could you at least _pretend_ to give good advice? 'Hack his omni', seriously?"

She looked up and glared at the taller blonde boy. "For your information, that _was_ my good advice. I was serious."

"Julia, I can't hack my father's omni-tool," Sydney laughed. "First of all, no. Second of all, I have no idea how to do that," she said to her crazy friend.

"I could do it, I know how," Julia shrugged.

Tucker groaned again, not even dignifying her words with a response. He just hung his head in his hands and mumbled something about short, psychotic girls.

"Julia, where in the world did you learn to hack an omni? We certainly weren't with you when you did," Sydney questioned.

"Remember when my parents grounded me last year and put all those annoying restrictions on my omni-tool?" When her friends nodded she continued. "Well I wasn't going to fucking sit there in my room without anything to do, so I tinkered around and found out how to get in under the restrictions. From there I opened up a proxy extranet connection and looked up how to get rid of the rest of them."

Her friends just stared at her; Tucker like she was mentally unsound and Sydney trying to conceal her laughter. She lost the battle with her giggles and Tucker turned to look at her with concern as well.

"You think it's funny that she can just hack into omni-tools? What is wrong with you two?" he asked incredulously. Tucker was sort of the goodie-two shoes golden boy of their friends. He followed the rules like it was his job and Julia broke them left and right just to bug him. In reality it was actually somewhat surprising that their roles weren't reversed when you looked at how their parents acted and raised them.

Tucker's parents were extremely laid back and chill about a lot of things. They even told him that if he was ever going to drink, drink at their house. Tucker, of course, never took them up on that, no matter how many times Julia bugged him too. He was pretty much a straight A student even though his parents didn't pressure him with high standards. He was President of their freshman class and an all-around great guy. Sydney was a lot like him when it came to grades and temperament, so when they finally started dating you probably could have heard the 'Finally!' ring out in their friend group and, to some extent, in the whole school. Maybe not as perfect as Tucker, she was still well loved at her school because of her genuinely kind demeanor and disposition.

A lot of people wondered how they were both friends with someone like Julia, who was pretty much the opposite of them. But what most people didn't realize was that she hadn't always been a crazy child and that Sydney and Tucker had been friends with her for too long to be put off by her insane tendencies. She had actually been more shy than either of them when they were growing up, but her family had quickly caused her to act out in the ways that she did.

The Kaleen's were a very strict family and ran a tight household. It also didn't help that Julia had three beautiful, talented, and successful older siblings. Her oldest sister had gone to Julliard because of her stunning voice and had directors from Broadway drooling over her and just waiting to snatch her up after she graduated. Her next oldest sibling was an athletic prodigy. As soon as he graduated from high school he was recruited to play for a GSML (Galactic Skyball Minor League) team. Her other brother was only a few years older than her and was a senior in high school. He was one of the hottest and most popular kids at school and, like Tucker, got straight A's.

With so much talent in her family, the pressure eventually started to drive Julia crazy. For a long time she tried to live up to her parent's expectations and all through middle school she worked herself ragged trying to please them. Then, halfway through her 8th grade year, came the straw that broke the camel's back.

She'd been having an extremely hellish week with insane levels of class work, a murderously difficult debate tournament, and grueling skyball practices. She came home from school and found her parents waiting for her with a grade report from her classes. She had gotten one B the semester before in Advanced Trigonometry and her parents were livid.

Julia just snapped when they started interrogating her as to why she hadn't gotten an A and telling her how woefully inadequate she was compared to her siblings. The stress from school and all her extracurricular activities, along with her hatred of being compared to the older children in the Kaleen family, finally just got to her and pushed her over the edge. She screamed at her parents and stunned them into silence with her outburst. She dashed up to her room, packed up some clothes and escaped through her bedroom window.

She stayed at Sydney's house for almost two weeks before she went back to her folk's house. By then she had jaggedly cut off her beautiful blonde locks that her parents admired and dyed them a shocking ebony color. She had also altered all of her, what she now called, 'prissy clothes'. She started dressing much edgier and was constantly pushing the edges of the dress code at school, but never quite going over. She dropped all her after school activities, except for skyball, and started doing as minimal work as possible at school so that she barely skated by with a passing grade.

Her parents tried everything to try and 'snap her out her rebellious funk'. They screamed at her, took her stuff away and tried grounding her by locking her in her room. When they realized she would just sneak out of her room via the window, they put a lock on it as well to keep her in. It wasn't long until she figured out how to bypass the lock and she was back to sneaking out.

Usually she didn't actually go out and get wasted like her parents thought she did. For the most part she just snuck over to Sydney or Tucker's houses and hung out with their families. Tucker's parents loved when Julia came over, personally thinking that her parents were extremely out of line with how much they expected from their youngest daughter. Sydney's parents probably would have been a little more hesitant to harbor their daughter's best friend at their house if it hadn't been for the fact that Julia had practically been part of their family since she was a little kid.

Julia's rebellious deviance first began as a way to just spite her parents and hurt them back for all the pressure they had levied on her. But gradually her spastic behavior became part of who she was. She was _happy_ when she got to act and do whatever she wanted. Until she had broken free of her parent's grip, she hadn't realized how completely _miserable_ she had been. A lot of the things that she thought were important to her she realized were really only important to her parents. She started doing things that made her feel good and made her happy instead of living for her parents.

It had been a jarring experience for her friends, but once the dust settled and the 'new' Julia integrated into all of their lives, they realized that their friend hadn't really been herself until she tapped into her inner bad girl.

For anyone outside of their circle of friends, it was hard for them to understand the sudden change. A lot of people just assumed she had gotten into drugs and that that was the reason for her sudden lifestyle change. Julia just rolled with it, not caring what other people thought of her anymore. It was a relief to her that she didn't have to conform to what other people thought she should be.

Not that anything about their friend's transformation hadn't shocked them at first, but one of the biggest shocks was Julia's change in language. She had been extremely soft spoken before her 'revival', as they called it, but afterwards she could make a sailor blush. Sydney didn't care about Julia's language except when they were around her little sister, then she made her short friend keep a tight rein on her loose tongue.

Neither of them had been influence much by Julia's change in demeanor, continuing to be steady, calm people, but Julia's language had been one thing that seemed to be increasingly rubbing off on Sydney lately, much to Tucker's dismay.

But, as much as Tucker acted like he was offended or distressed with Julia's abrasive behavior, he would never actually judge her for it. He had been there for all of it and understood why she was the way she was. Sydney thought it would have taught him not to be surprised whenever Julia exhibited some new deviant behavior.

Julia sighed and shook her head. "Tucker, you'd think by now that the things I'm capable of would stop being a shock to you."

"You'd think," he mumbled.

Sydney was glad for the distraction that her friends antics could always provide her, but her dad's actions still bothered her immensely.

"Okay, well I'm not going to let you hack my dad's omni just yet. If he keeps it up and it gets worse I might have to take you up on your offer, but for now let's see if we can come up with some other way to figure out what he's up to."

-.-.-.-.-

A tingling numbness was slowly working its way through Jake Shepard's body and it brought a blissful feeling of nothingness as it clouded the thoughts in his mind. His head had been pounding earlier, but he gladly found a remedy for that at the bottom of the glass of whiskey in front of him. Once the burn from his previous swallow was almost gone, he took another large swig of his drink.

Some part of him knew that what he was doing wasn't right and that it wasn't help him, but the more prominent part that was getting the instant freedom from the tormenting pain of his wife's death didn't care.

Jake had never been one to drink much. Hannah didn't care for alcohol whatsoever, and while he enjoyed a beer every now and then, he was just as content going without.

But he had been getting increasingly desperate since Hannah's passing. She haunted his dreams, causing him to have more and more sleepless nights. Even when he wasn't trying to sleep, her absence seemed to press in on him from all sides and caused him so much misery. The empty hole in his heart didn't allow him any relief from her death. Everywhere he turned he thought he saw her out the corner of his eye. He had been slowly going to pieces until, a couple of weeks ago, he'd gone to the bar after work that first time.

He hadn't been to a bar in a long time and had felt uncomfortable and out of place in the dank atmosphere. He sat down at the bar and just ordered a simple beer, all the while his brain was screaming at him to leave. As he nursed his first and then second drink, a pleasant warmth had settled over him. He hadn't felt warmth like that in a long time, his body and soul felt perpetually cold ever since his wife had been diagnosed with cancer and even more so after her death.

Before he knew it, hours had passed and he had consumed three more beers. It had passed from afternoon to night much quicker than he'd thought it should have, but he didn't really pay it much mind. The warm feeling he'd had after his first few drinks had wrapped him up in a cocoon of sweet bliss. The edges of all the pains in his heart seemed to have been dulled and the empty ache in his heart was masked by the bright flush of the alcohol. He remembered thinking that he should probably get home before it got much later, so he had stumbled out of the bar and headed to his skycar. Thankfully his had an autopilot feature (not all of them did) so he wouldn't have to drive himself. He had passed out in the front seat as the skycar bore him home.

He had tried to be quiet as he got into the house and just intended to go straight to his room and pass out on his bed. That was another thing that tormented him: His bed. It was the same bed he and Hannah had shared since they'd been married. It held so many memories for him and they seemed to sink into him every time he laid in it and torture him with Hannah's memory. Half of the time he wanted to burn the thing, but the other half of the time he clung to it and his wife's memory alike. It was bittersweet anguish for him.

He stumbled through the living room toward his room not even thinking to see if anyone else was awake. His daughter had scared him witless when she cleared her throat. He had been getting ready to scold her for scaring him when he turned around and looked at her. Then he locked eyes with her and he thought his heart stopped.

_Hannah?_ he had thought wildly. Her eyes stared right at him, exactly how he remembered them to be. The beautiful swirling orbs of sometimes blue and sometimes green that had captivated him from the first time he had looked into them. The eyes that seemed to be able to look right into your soul.

Hannah's eyes on the day they had met.

Hannah's eyes on their wedding day.

Hannah's eyes on the day they had held first Sydney and then McKenzie in their arms.

Hannah's eyes-

"Dad."

He jumped when he heard the voice spoken from the face with Hannah's eyes. _Not Hannah's... Sydney's eyes._

"Sydney..." he realized with despair. _Not Hannah... never again Hannah._

He had been taken completely by surprise by her anger, but understood that it was totally deserved. He'd messed up and forgotten to pick McKenzie up from school. He'd stuttered out an apology and an excuse as to where he had been in an attempt to mollify his daughter. He could tell she didn't by his pretense about difficulties at work, but knew he couldn't explain where he'd really been. He couldn't bear to think of the disappointment he'd see in those eyes if they found out what he'd been doing.

The warm bliss he'd been wrapped up in had quickly diminished once he'd been caught by his daughter and he had felt a strong headache coming on and he had just wanted to lay down. "Look, I'm sorry, alright? It won't happen again," he tried to tell her.

"Dad-"

The headache had started to invade the edges of his vision. "I said it won't happen again. Now, I'm tired and I want to get some sleep. I'll see you in the morning Sydney." He'd already turned around by the time he said her name and didn't see her flinch. Just like he hadn't noticed it the first time either.

He tumbled into the room and barely got his shoes off before he fell into the bed, already asleep by the time his head hit the pillows. The last thing that flashed through his mind before he had dropped into unconsciousness was Hannah's perfectly replicated eyes in his daughter. A shiver passed through him and then he was out like a light.

He awoke the next morning and realized that he'd slept the whole night without waking once. Sure, he'd had a ridiculously raging hangover as punishment, but if he could find an escape from the haunting dreams of the dead woman he'd loved, he was willing to endure any price.

There was no way he was going back to those beautiful, torturous nightmares. Now that he'd found the cure and the way to sleep through the night, he wasn't willing to face them any longer.

It was then that he realized he'd lied to his daughter. He'd said he wasn't going to happen again. But as he sat in another bar, nursing another whiskey, he knew he couldn't stop. He'd lied.


	8. The Most Wonderful Time of the Year?

Chapter 8 - It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year...?

_Three months after the funeral (January 2187)_

The forest sat in sleepy silence, ice and snow making its home along the barren ground and draped throughout the gnarled limbs of the dead trees. The pale sky shone weak light through dense layers of sorrowful clouds and the wind cut angry currents across the world below. There was barely any movement along the frozen ground as animals sought warmth deep under the earth or within the hollows of the trees. Sporadically a bird would shatter the silence with a half hearted attempt at song or a hare would snap a dry twig scavenging for food.

Winter had come without mercy and held the earth in its cold claws, discouraging anyone from venturing outside lest they feel its icy sting. One soul braved the biting weather and was currently making its way through the forest, evading the trees and leaping over fallen logs. They ran with no apparent destination and the white puffs of their heated breath trailed behind them as they pushed through the wintery undergrowth.

_Shittiest Christmas ever_, was one of the errant thoughts that made its way through the runner's mind. _Lord... Julia is seriously rubbing off on me... _came another rueful thought on the tail end of the first. _Tuck would sigh and Julia would laugh. I wonder- Shit!_

Distracted by her thoughts, Sydney barely escaped being clothes-lined by a low hanging branch and wretched herself out of the way at the last second. She recovered her balance and continued to run, shoving all thoughts aside that weren't focused on the exercise. She concentrated on her laboring breaths, the burn of lactic acid in her muscles and the pumping of her arms. Her eyes continued to flick about, alerting her brain to any obstacles in her way and absorbing the environment around her.

She only allowed herself to be caught up in the rapid beating of her heart and shut out anything else that would make her think beyond her body's physical exertion.

Thud-ump  
Thud-ump

A hare dashing from beneath a bush

Breath in  
Breath out

A single bird exploding into the sky

Hissss

Her legs displacing the snow around her

Thud-ump  
Thud-ump

The cold air prickling along exposed flesh

Breath in  
Breath out

Forcing oxygen into laboring lungs

Thud-ump

Running...

Breath in

Racing...

Thud-ump

Escaping...

Breath out

_Mom..._

Thud-UMP, thud, breath, -ump, out, in, thud

"FUCK!"

She tripped and fell into the thin layer of snow, her knees jarring on the frozen ground. She hissed in pain and instantly shoved herself upright out of the cold, icy powder. She stood, her back hunched, head bent toward the ground and her gloved fists clenched at her sides.

_God, Mom. Momma... I miss you_. Tears slipped from beneath closed eyes and left freezing trails down her face.

She allowed the forest to grow quiet around her, not making a noise as emotion wracked her body. Tendrils of white breath escaped her mouth slower and slower as her erratic breathing slowed and her heart settled. Her muscles slowly relaxed from their tensed state and loosened as she stood still.

She let the silence and peacefulness of the woods around her engulf her until she felt the first bits of cold seep into her cooling muscles. She straightened her back and let out a long, shuddering breath, flexing and curling her fingers on her clenched hands. Her body hung completely loose for a few seconds before she brought her head up and inhaled the crisp, wintery air around her.

She looked down at the GPS in her omni to see where her run had taken her. She had run almost 5 miles without even realizing it and she had gone a bit deeper into the woods than she had meant to. Inputting her house address, she waited a moment for the GPS to give her her bearings and then she took off at a slower pace back towards civilization.

Sydney was very athletic and active and loved running. She was one of those weird people who used running as a way to relax and relieve stress. She loved running best of all when it was cold, though. She'd run anytime, regardless of the weather or the temperature, but there was something about the feeling of her muscles starting out idle and cold, and then warming up to feel the blood pumping through them that just allowed her to relax. Since getting Sadie, Sydney would usually run with her since her growing puppy had huge reserves of energy, but it had been extra cold and she didn't want to risk Sadie getting hurt in the forest since she wasn't running on a trail.

Since they were on Winter Break, she had been able to run almost every morning because she didn't have to wake up for school or drop her sister off. They'd be starting back in a week and a half, but she had enjoyed the break as much as she could. _Yeah, as much as I could with all the shi- crap Dad has been doing, _she thought darkly. She also shook her head realizing how much Julia's colorful language had been rubbing off on her. _She'd be so proud of my 'decent into darkness'._

Her dad's drinking had only gotten worse as the months had gone by. And yes, she had confirmed that her dad was getting drunk. She did laundry in the house, and as his habit had gotten worse, she'd been able to smell the alcohol on his clothes. Whereas before it had only happened once a week, her dad now stumbled into the house drunk at least twice a week. It had gotten to the point where even McKenzie started noticing and Sydney's weak excuses couldn't hide it from her any longer. She instead just started telling the little girl that their dad didn't feel good and that that's why he looked so pale and why he didn't talk much.

There wasn't any way for her to explain it better to McKenzie. She wouldn't be able to understand the entirety of the situation or why their dad was resorting to alcohol to drown his memories. In an objective way Sydney could understand what her dad was doing, but as someone who was trapped in the same nightmare, she cursed him bitterly for his weakness and his failure to cope.

On top of that, Sydney's issues with her name weren't getting any better. She tried steadfastly to ignore the shots of pain that went through her body every time someone used her name, but it seemed like the more she ignored it, the more determined the torturous memories were to hurt her. Thankfully, she was somewhat safe from the pain at home because her father rarely spoke much to her and her sister always just called her 'sissy'. Julia loved calling her silly nicknames so Sydney could hide the pain from her pretty well, but it was harder with Tucker because he usually just called her 'Syd'.

The most frustrating thing was that she couldn't really do anything about it. Her friends would think she was crazy if she told them to stop saying her name. It was her _name_, what else were they supposed to call her? But as time went on and her reaction to the name continued, she began thinking more and more about a way to escape it. It would be especially hard to convince people who already knew her to call her something else. If she met new people, she could come up with something, maybe just asking them to call her 'S' or something...

Sydney sighed as she jogged home. _Why does my brain have to be an idiot?_ she wondered to herself glumly. _It has made life infinitely more difficult because of its idiotic tendencies._ Why couldn't she have mourned her mom like a normal person? She didn't follow that train of thought, though. Her mother had been beyond special. If the price of having had someone so amazing as a mother was to suffer because of her name, she realized she was willing to pay the piper. _I guess everything has to balance out somehow... But it still sucks._

She'd been distracted by all of her thoughts and when she looked up she was almost home, being in a part of the forest that she recognized well. She picked up her pace a little bit and exited the line of trees, coming out by the road that led toward her neighborhood. She pushed herself a bit faster to cover the remainder of the distance and only slowed when she rounded the street her house was on. She allowed herself to naturally lose speed until she was walking slowly and she also slowed her breathing in a controlled manner, not wanting to get craps after her long run.

She stretched outside until she again felt the cold almost seeping into her muscles and then she headed inside. Even though she had almost gone 10 miles in the span of the run, she hadn't been gone that long and the two other occupants of the house were still asleep. She snorted, _if you can call Dad's alcohol induced dead-to-the-world unconsciousness as sleep. _

She quietly made her way up the stairs and poked her head into McKenzie's room to check on the little girl. Her sister was nestled up in her covers and Sydney could barely see her face peeping out from beneath the bundles of cloth. Sadie was curled up by the side of the bed but raised her head when she saw her master. Sydney made the sign for stay and Sadie dropped her head back onto her paws and sighed contentedly. She was quite happy in the little girl's room and didn't particularly want to move. She would have instantly obeyed her owner had she been called, but she was glad that she wasn't.

Sydney made her way into her room and quickly stripped out of her sweaty clothing, shivering slightly when the dry air brushed her damp skin. She turned on the shower as hot as it would go and bounced up and down on her toes waiting for the water to heat up. As soon as it was even a fraction warmer than the air in the bathroom, Sydney jumped in. As the temperature rose even more, she relaxed as the hot water rolled over her chilled skin. _Good lord, nothing beats a hot shower_.

After staying in the shower until her fingers started to get wrinkly, Sydney reluctantly turned off the water and dried off quickly. She pulled on her warmest pair of sweatpants, a long sleeve t-shirt and one of Tucker's big hoodies she had stolen from his house. She also slipped on some gray, fuzzy socks that she had gotten for Christmas from Mindy.

Thinking about Christmas made her frown and remember her thought from earlier; _shittiest Christmas ever. Indeed..._

-.-.-.-.-

_Christmas Day morning:_

"Sissy, wake up!" screeched a voice in her ear.

"Gahhh!" Sydney flailed as she was ripped from her slumber. "Whaa-?"

"It's Christmas, sissy, it's Christmas!" the same shrill voice yelled.

Sydney quickly gained her bearings after her sudden shift into wakefulness and groped around her nightstand to find her omni-tool. She squinted into the dark to look at the time and groaned when she saw how early it was. "Kenz, its 4:30 in the morning," the brunette whined. Sydney had stayed up late with her little sister, putting out milk and cookies for Santa, and then after tucking McKenzie into bed, she had dozed for a little while before she woke again and silently place out the presents from 'Santa' for her little sister. She'd fallen asleep roughly around 2, and so thanks to McKenzie's cheerful wake up call, she had really only gotten a solid two and a half hours of sleep.

The little blonde just bounced on her sister some more and kept nagging her to get up, not caring that it was the butt-crack of dawn and that Sydney had gotten a woefully inadequate amount of sleep. "Sissy! Christmas! Pwesents!"

"Alright, alright, I'm up, you little spaz," Sydney finally conceded. She shooed McKenzie out of her bed and rolled out of the warm covers. She groaned again and shivered at the loss of heat and quickly stumbled to her closet to pull on a sweatshirt and slippers. Her sister continued to run around her room squealing with joy and barely concealed excitement. Sydney couldn't help smiling at her sister's infectious enthusiasm and she scooped her sister up in her arms the next time the blonde ran by her. "Gotcha! You can't escaped the Christmas tickle now!" she pretended to growl, throwing McKenzie back on her bed.

The little girl shrieked in delight as she tried to fend off her older sister. "Ahh! No Christmas tickle!" She dissolved into giggles as Sydney tickled her all over and blew raspberries on her tummy. Sadie was drawn by all the commotion and she hopped into the bed and joined in the Christmas morning romp as well. They wrestled around in Sydney's bed until almost 5 and made a complete and utter mess out of her bedding. When they all lay panting and exhausted, Sydney called a truce and they all caught their breath before moving. Sydney kissed her sister and threw her over her shoulder, leaving her room and carrying a wiggling McKenzie down to the living room.

The excited child gave another ear-splitting yelp of excitement when she saw all the new presents under the tree that hadn't been there the night before_. You gotta love kids. Their belief in magic is a beautiful thing and it helps us not forget our imagination._

While McKenzie tore into her stocking, which was filled to the brim and laying by the fire place, Sydney made hot chocolate for the both of them and then sat down on the couch, watching her sister with a smile on her face. The little girl 'oohed' and 'aahhed' over all the small toys that were in her stocking and giggled happily every time she found a piece of candy in there as well.

That's what they'd always done in their family: Stockings could be opened first while the adults were still asleep, and they'd always be filled with small knick-knacks and little pouches of candy. By the time McKenzie finished pulling everything out of her stocking, brought Sydney hers and watched her pull her stuff out, it was almost 6. To kill a little bit more time, Sydney started breakfast while McKenzie played with the toys from her stocking and they ate a few minutes later. When it was 6:45, and she figured it was as late as she could push it without McKenzie getting impatient, she went to go wake their dad up so they could start opening presents.

Sydney went into her dad's room and approached his bed. "Hey, Dad. Wake up, Kenzie is ready to start presents," she said quietly. When she got no response she spoke a bit louder, "Dad, wake up. It's Christmas morning." After more silence she resorted to shaking his shoulder a bit. "Wake up, Dad, don't be a lazy butt." He grumbled a little bit but just turned to face away from her._ You have got to be kidding me, _she sighed irritably. Then she grinned evilly and called for her sister.

McKenzie bounded into the room and looked at her sister. Sydney smiled at her and asked, "Ready to wake Daddy up?"

The little girl giggled and nodded, and without further prompting, leapt up onto the bed and started bouncing around screaming, "Daddy it's Christmas! Daddy it's Christmas!"

That's when Christmas that year turned, as Julia would say, shitty as fuck.

Their father made a deeply annoyed noise and roughly shoved his youngest daughter out of his bed onto the floor. She hit the wood with a loud smack and Sydney's mouth hit the floor._ What. The. Fuck._

McKenzie was stunned for a moment and didn't respond because she was so shocked. But then she burst into tears from the combination of the pain from hitting the floor and her Daddy pushing her away. Sydney instantly grabbed her sister and pulled her into a crushing hug, escaping her father's room as fast as she could.

Sydney was seething on the inside; she was beyond livid and barely keeping her rage in check. Holding the sobbing little girl in her arms was the only thing stopping her from going back in the room and ripping their dad a new one. Her inner thoughts were roiling with turmoil and she was furious. _I'm going to kill him. I swear. What the HELL is wrong with him?!_

Her thoughts were diverted as McKenzie continued to cry and she clutched at her older sister, clinging to her like a life-line. Sydney pushed aside her anger and made soothing noises to her sister. She stroked her soft hair and gently rocked her back and forth in her arms, all the while planting small, loving kisses on the little girl.

After a long time the body-wrenching sobs faded into quiet hiccups and sniffles. Finally, McKenzie pulled away from her sister a little bit and looked up into her face, her eyes red and her nose puffy from all her tears. "W-why Daddy d-do tha'?" she asked in a tiny voice. "I jus'... It's Christmas... I jus'-jus' wanted Daddy to o-open pwesents wif us." She almost started crying again and Sydney saw small tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

She leaned down and kissed both of her sister's cheeks and cradled her face in her bigger hands. "Daddy's just sick is all, baby. He didn't know it was you in the bed. He didn't mean to hurt you." _Bastard, how could he do this to her? HOW?_

"Daddy... Daddy not mad at me?" McKenzie asked pitifully, having been afraid that her father had pushed her because he was angry with her.

The look of hurt in those brown eyes broke Sydney's heart and she pulled her sister up into another tight hug. "No, Kenzie-bear. No, no. Daddy wasn't mad at you, he loves you. Daddy's just sick right now and doesn't always know what he's doing," she tried to soothe the little girl and even tried to convince herself.

After being held for a few more moments McKenzie nodded slightly and wiped her face a bit with her small hands. "O-okay..." She turned and looked at the tree with all the presents under it and a ghost of a smile wiggled its way back onto her face. "Can we... can we still do pwesents?"

Sydney plastered a big, fake smile on her face and tried to be positive for her younger sister. "Of course we can, silly! Look," she pointed to the plate of cookies and the glass by the fire place, "Santa came and ate your delicious cookies and brought your presents because you are such a wonderful little angel." She did genuinely laugh a little when McKenzie bounded over to the empty plate and glass to look at them in wonder. Sydney had left some very obvious crumbs behind and a little bit of milk remaining in the bottom of the glass.

McKenzie inspected them very closely and, after a nod and a smile, seemed to find it acceptable. Whatever 'it' was. She then descended on her presents like locust on a field. Everything seemed to be her favorite. She would open up one gift, squeal with happiness and dub it her favorite, then she'd open another present and do and say the exact same thing. By the end of the present opening she was laughing and smiling without a hint of falsity and she delighted in seeing her sister so gleeful and distracted from everything.

-.-.-.-.-

_Late Christmas Day night:_

After the initial craziness of the morning had died down, McKenzie had busied herself with all her new toys and Sydney slipped back into her pissed off mood. She made sure not to show it around her sister, but she was still beyond angry with her dad. She brooded all day and stewed in her anger.

When Kenzie had started to nod off and show signs of weariness, Sydney helped her get ready for bed and tucked her in with her new stuffed animal. She kissed her little sister goodnight and told Sadie to 'guard'. It was her command for watch the room and the girl. Sadie complied and curled up by the side of the bed where she could see the door.

Since they were little, Julia, Tucker and Sydney all hung out Christmas Day night after they got done spending time with their families. That night, Sydney was heading over to see Julia who was stuck in her room because her parents had grounded her on Christmas day. The things Julia's parents would ground her for stopped surprising the friends a long time ago and they just went with it. Julia snuck out most of the time anyway, so the groundings usually didn't do much to deter them. She didn't bother that night because Sydney was going to sneak into her room instead.

Sydney quietly slunk around to the back of the house and sent a quick message on her omni to Julia. A moment later, a window on the second floor opened and a rope latter was thrown down to the ground. Sydney scaled it quickly and pulled it up after her when she crept into the window.

"God, thanks for coming over. I was ready to blow my fucking brains out today," Julia complained to her best friend. She threw herself at Sydney and pretended to die painfully.

Sydney just snorted at the raven-haired girl's theatrics and shoved her onto the bed. She then flopped onto the beanbag across from the bead and let out an aggravated sigh.

"Daaaamn, I know that sound," Julia whistled. "Shit happen at your house too?"

"Like you wouldn't fucking believe," Sydney retorted, closing her eyes and rubbing them tiredly.

Julia blinked at her friend because of the swear word and knew something was up. She knew that Sydney was picking up on her language a little bit more than usual because of the stress she had been under, but she rarely ever swore unless she was upset or angry. Because before Julia's influential language habits, her best friend literally said things like 'poop' and 'nug-muffins' when something made her mad. So while 'damn', 'hell', and 'crap' were a step up, using one of the 'big two' meant that something was really bothering her friend. That's why all Julia said was, "Lay it on me," and let the flood gates open.

In a harsh tone, Sydney explained the events of her morning and her eyes flashed angrily when she recounted her dad's actions. Julia was even a little bit shocked herself because, even though she knew about Jake's drinking problem, she, like Sydney, didn't think he'd ever do anything so extreme. Tears of anger were beginning to form in Sydney's eyes and she roughly wiped them away.

"Julia, what the hell is _wrong_ with him?" Sydney pleaded, wishing her friend had the answers. "I know he's hurting from Mom's death, we all are, but what he's doing is despicable. He has no self-control and he sometimes doesn't move for an entire day."

Julia had tugged her best friend onto the bed when she started telling the story and she had her arm around her shoulders, squeezing it affectionately. "I don't know what to tell you, Syd," she told her, feeling a twitch under her arm when she said Sydney's name. She'd been noticing that about her as well and she was slowly coming to her own realization about that reaction; one very close to the truth that Sydney was hiding.

"Sure, I drink sometimes, but I'm not stupid about it. I do it for fun and to have a good time. Every now and then I do party to escape something my idiotic parents said, or to forget about how pissed I feel sometimes, but I know my limits," Julia explained. "I guess your dad just doesn't know his."

"Or he knows them and he's just purposefully going way beyond them," Sydney said bitterly.

Julia sighed, hating the pain she heard in her friend's voice. She debated for a moment in her head, but then got up off the bed and went to her closet. She dug around in it for a few moment and then pulled out a clear bottle.

When she sat back down she gave Sydney a hard look. "I am not, _not_, condoning alcohol as a conducive way to drown away your problems. But I won't deny that, when used sparingly, it can help." Julia unscrewed the lid and took a swig before she passed it to Sydney.

After a slight hesitation, Sydney took a swallow and grimaced a little bit. "What is that?"

Julia laughed at her, knowing Sydney wasn't really used to alcohol in any form. "It's just plain vodka, sheep-head," she said, noticing that Sydney didn't react at all to the nickname. "Not the most high end, but it's decent and it'll do the job."

Sydney shrugged and took another sip, noticing it burned less on the way down a second time. "How do you keep this hidden? Don't your parents search your room like, everyday?"

Julia snorted humorlessly, accepting the bottle back from Syd and taking another drink. "Sure, they riffle through my drawers and look under my bed, but they're kidding themselves if they think I'd make shit that easy. I've got half a dozen hiding places that Alliance spy's probably couldn't even find."

Sydney laughed at her friend's exaggeration, but shook her head and marveled all the same. As much as Julia tried to hide it, she really was brilliant. When she applied herself, her friend was scarily smart. Taking the vodka back from Julia, she took another long swallow and she started to feel the effects of the alcohol in her system. Sydney often wondered what her actual IQ was, because she could have easily been as smart as her or Tucker, if not more. Speaking of Tucker...

"Is Tucker coming over tonight?"

Julia groaned and gently smacked her face with the palm of her hand. "Shit. Yeah he is, and he if see's that I got you drunk again, he's going to fucking kill me." She leaned over to try and take the bottle back from Sydney but the brunette fended her off.

"Uh uh," she said, and guzzled another large amount."I'll deal with Tucker, you shouldn't take the blame for this, you're just being a good friend."

"A good friend who gets goody goods drunk," Julia mumbled, but stopped trying to pull the vodka away from Sydney. "Damn it, I'm screwed."

-.-.-.-.-

_"What is wrong with you!?"_

_"Hey! Calm the fuck down, she's a big girl and she can do what she wants."_

_"She probably wouldn't even think to drink if it wasn't for you!"_

_"God, Rolden, get off your fucking high horse! I've seen you drunk too,"_

_"Yeah, at a party or two, not to drown my sorrows!"_

_"Shit, she's not 'drowning' anything! It just barely took the edge off for her and let her fucking sleep in peace."_

_"What, peace like her dad is finding?"_

_"This is NOT the same fucking thing as that! Don't you dare compare the shit he's doing to her."_

_"Well that's what it looks like!"_

_"This is one fucking time because she had a shit-ass day! Damn it, even she needs a break sometimes. She is the only thing holding that family together and if she doesn't have some way to ease the pain every now and then, she's going to snap. And THEN she'll end up like her dad! Is that what you want?"_

_"No! But this can't be the answer either."_

_Both fell silent, staring at each other with many emotions swirling around inside of them. Surprisingly enough, anger wasn't even the most predominant one for either of them. Their fear and concern for their friend was what made them so hostile towards each other._

_They heard the window open and the object of their argument climb down and silently walk up to them. She regarded them with sad eyes, wishing this whole scenario would just disappear. Her dad's stupid choices were spilling over and invading every aspect of her life and she hated it._

_"I heard everything you guys said," she held up her hand to stop them from interrupting when she saw them both open their mouths. "And I agree to some degree with both of you." She turned to Tucker and leaned up to give him a kiss on the cheek. "Tuck, it's sweet that you worry about me and I know your concerns are valid, but Julia is right," she covered his mouth with one finger when he started to protest. When he nodded that he wouldn't say anything, she dropped her hand into his and intertwined their fingers. Her other hand sought out Julia's and held onto hers as well._

_"I don't know what I would do without you guys, honestly. This is just some messed up... crap." She gave a small smirk when she saw Julia roll her eyes. Sydney turned somber again as she spoke, though. "Tucker, I know you don't like it, but I did need it tonight. God, this morning was awful. I won't be able to get the image of McKenzie's distress out of my head for a long time. But it's good that it's there. It will keep me from EVER becoming like him. But Julia did help me." Sydney shook her head a little bit. "Maybe that makes me a hypocrite, but it is what it is. I don't need it like he does, but it's nice to know it's there if I get overwhelmed. And he has no safeguard. You," she squeezed both their hands, "are my safeguards. I trust you guys with my life." _

_She paused and looked up into the sky, looking for some sign that her mom might be up there watching over her. She sighed and smiled sadly at Tucker, "I can't promise you I won't do it again, Tuck." Her heart hurt a little at the saddened and upset look in his eyes, but she didn't back down. "I can't. But I need you with me. Can we work past this? The three of us? Please?"_

_Julia didn't even have to think about it. "I'm always with you, sheep-head," she reassured her best friend, only using her nickname now that she realized something hurt Sydney every time her name was said. "But I'm the crazy chick so I guess that's a given," she winked, the warm smile she gave Sydney conveying her love for her friend. She then gave a pointed look at Tucker._

_He looked at both of them for a long time. He closed his eyes and sighed. "God, I don't like it, I really don't. But if arguing with you forces sides to be drawn, I won't fight you two on this." He gave Julia a hard look. "You know your limits, she probably doesn't. Don't push her, Julia. Ever."_

_"Fuck, Tucker, I'm not an idiot. I'm not going to let her drink herself into a stupid stupor 24/7. Shit, I probably won't let her do it even once a month, only as a last resort when she's at her rope's end."  
_

_"Uh, guys, I'm standing right here," Sydney said somewhat sarcastically. "Don't I get a say in this?"_

_Julia waved a hand in her face. "Nah, I'll know when you need it, sheep-head, don't worry." More seriously she said, "I really mean it when I say it, Tucker, she'll need it, but not all the time, and I'll always keep an eye on her."_

_Sydney realized that Tucker wouldn't be present for these 'therapy sessions' and it made her sad knowing that she was doing something that he really didn't like, but needing it enough to go against his disapproval. She knew it would probably take a small toll on their relationship, but she hoped they'd be able to work through it._

_She let go of Julia's hand and wrapped both her arms around his waist and kissed him gently. "I'm sorry, Tuck. I'm sorry that I need this," she whispered._

_"I know," he sighed sadly, "I know."_

* * *

_A/N - Bit of a weird set up, but I think the format helps with how jarring the emotions of the events were and the strangeness of the writing helps with the confusion of what is going on in Syd's life. (Everything after 'Christmas Day morning' was flashback. There was just so much and I didn't want to put the WHOLE thing in italics. 'Present' is sometime in early January if you wanted to know. Hope that cleared stuff up.)_

_(Pretty sure the language in this chapter warrants a bump up to M. Way to go Julia.)_


	9. Once Bitten, Twice as Shy

Chapter 9 - Once Bitten, Twice as Shy

_Six months after the funeral (April 2187)_

Things for the trio became strained and filled with tension after the fiasco that was Christmas day. An obvious awkwardness settled around Tucker and Sydney as they tried to move past the fact that Sydney would actively do something that Tucker was completely against. Julia and Tucker were slightly uneasy around each other as well because he blamed her for the whole situation. Although blamed was slightly harsher than what he felt, he just knew that it probably wouldn't have come up if Julia hadn't suggested it. Their problems weren't extremely apparent to the outside world and during their day to day interactions, it went mostly ignored in the back of their minds. No one at school recognized the tension between them and they did a good job of not letting it affect their friendships. Just like a line had almost been drawn between the three best friends, they knew that if their other friends found out, another division might have happened.

As the months went by though, they slowly became more comfortable around each other. Sydney didn't have as many 'therapy sessions' with Julia as she thought she was going to have, and Tucker begrudgingly recognized that Sydney would explode if she didn't have any way to alleviate the stress that infused every aspect of her home life.

Going home became something she dreaded every day, and if it hadn't been for McKenzie, Sydney would have avoided her house like the plague. Their dad was on the verge of being a complete wreck. She had no idea how he hadn't been fired from work yet since he seemed to miss work at least three times a week. Some days he wouldn't budge from his room all day and Sydney had just started leaving food outside his room because she didn't even want to go in and look at his face.

It was a terrible situation that tore Sydney up inside. Despite everything her dad was doing, he was still her dad. Her dad who would hold her every time she fell off her hoverboard. Her dad who had dropped her off the first day of junior high. Her dad who had come to every one of her skyball games. Her dad who had caught her making out with Tucker for the first time. Her dad. Daddy. And it killed her to watch him spiral to such depths and look in helplessly from the outside as he continued on a path of destruction. As much as she raged to her friends about how mad he was making her, she still loved him.

The stress from having to be not only a sister, but a mother as well to McKenzie, and from having to be a daughter, but also a caretaker, to her father, was immense. And she couldn't escape the pain and stress even when she was outside of her home because everywhere she went her name haunted her.

Weeks ago she began introducing herself as just 'S' or Shepard to any new people that she met because she didn't want even more people knowing her name and addressing her by it. She finally got to the point where she even starting asking her friends to just call her by her sheep nicknames that Julia had made up or to just call her Shepard. Hearing her last name was really bizarre for a long time and it took her awhile to adjust to it. It took other people just as long to get used to it as well and people at school that she didn't know very well still called her Sydney because they thought she was just being a stuck up jock for wanting everyone to refer to her by her last name. It really pissed her off for a little while because who were they to judge her? They had no idea what kind of pain she went through. Julia eloquently told her to 'Fuck the haters' and she eventually just ignored them.

Objectively she knew that the months following her mother's death were going to be hard. How could they not be? But imagining how it was going to be and actually living it were two completely different beasts. In no universe would she have been able to predict how badly her life would begin to deteriorate. If someone would have told her that, after her mom died, her dad would turn into an alcoholic and that she would learn to detest her very name, she would have called them delusional idiots. And if such a person would have existed, she would be cursing their very existence now for speaking the truth about her current predicament.

She literally would have gone insane and jumped right off the deep end if it hadn't of been for Julia, Tucker and her little sister. They were the only ones who kept her anywhere near rational and functioning, and the only rays of happiness in her despair. McKenzie because she would have been helpless without her older sister, and Sydney wasn't anywhere near overwhelmed enough to be so selfish as to neglect her younger sibling. Her urge to help those that couldn't help themselves was still strong even though she couldn't even help herself. And, in the end, she would do absolutely anything for her little sister. Sydney put a lot of people before herself, maybe not as many as her mom had (because Hannah would have put _anyone_ before herself), but at the very top of that list, even after her two best friends and her dad, was McKenzie, and no amount of death, utter despair or pain would ever change that.

Tucker and Julia were the other forces in her life that kept her grounded and provided an escape for her whenever the pressure seemed ready to swallow her up. Lately it felt like she was being precariously dangled at the edge of a massive, bottomless pit, and the only thing keeping her from tumbling into an abyss of depression and suffering was her boyfriend and her best friend. She would have been screwed long ago without them. Tucker was a calm, strong pillar of never-wavering support that she could always turn to for consistence. And Julia was a raging fire of wild energy that provided her an escape whenever she needed it. Together they worked in tandem to try and hold back the insanity that had become her life.

Right now it was the former of the two positive forces in her life that was distracting her.

Currently she was trying to ignore all the pain swirling around in her head and heart and was attempting to focus on what she was doing. She'd already screwed it up once and was trying to fix the glaringly obvious mistake by covering it up. She held her breath in concentration and gently starting patching up the surface.

McKenzie's 6th birthday was that day and she'd been trying to get everything ready for her little sister. There was this kid's vid show that the girl had become obsessed with and had demanded that her party be themed like it. It was a show that had these weird little cartoon characters of all the different galactic races (the batarians and vorcha oddly absent) and then went around to each of the home planets and helped clean up pollution. She thought the environmental aspect of the show was ridiculously obvious, but her sister loved it. And, Sydney had to admit, whoever drew the cartoons did a pretty good job; the aliens all looked extremely cute and cuddly.

She'd contacted the parents of all of McKenzie's friends and sent out invitations a few weeks before. She had bought plates and napkins that had the different characters on them and had set up some holos around the house of the cartoon aliens doing adorable things. She was trying to make a cake with her sister's favorite character on it, Glauder the elcor, but had been having trouble, and was attempting to cover up the fact that it looked like he had a long tail by turning it into a leg. _Jeez... I should just stick to skyball and animals..._

When she realized that anything else she tried to do would just make it worse, she left the poor elcor alone and hoped the kids would be too intent on eating the cake to laugh at her sub-par artistic abilities. She sighed and placed the cake in the fridge before turning and doing one last cursory look over the house to make sure everything was in place. She'd dumped McKenzie on Tucker and Julia for the day so that the little girl wouldn't get in her way while she was setting up. Looking at the time, she knew they'd be back soon and that the kids would all start arriving.

She started walking out of the kitchen, eyes lingering over the decorations, when she almost face planted on the living room floor. She turned her dive into an ungraceful stumble and managed to catch herself on the edge of the couch. She turned and glared at the thing that had made her trip and grumbled in annoyance. Sadie just picked up her head and looked at her owner as if to say 'what'd you fall for, silly', completely ignoring the fact that she was sprawled out in front of the entrance to the kitchen and her huge bulk had caused her master to stumble.

Sadie was one other aspect that brought joy into her otherwise sullen life. Her antics never ceased to make Sydney laugh and she was the perfect cuddling companion whenever she just needed to decompress. She was almost full grown and, as Sydney had predicted, was massive. At about 8 months old, she still had her gangly puppy legs and didn't seem to realize how incredible big she was. She still attempted to climb into Sydney's lap on the couch or curl up in her bed. Sydney would lose feeling in her legs after a few minutes of having the dog on her and would have to squirm out from under her. She was also extremely glad she had a queen sized mattress or else Sadie would have completely dominated the bed. It had been okay to sleep with her when the dog had been a puppy, but when she started growing it became a problem. She was slowly training her to always sleep on the floor, but still fell prey to Sadie's big, brown puppy eyes and sometimes let her sleep with her.

Sydney just sighed and rubbed her dog's head affectionately, kissing her on the nose. "Some of the kids don't like big dogs, you know. You're gonna have to stay in my room, girl." Sadie just licked her master and closed her eyes as she got petted, not understanding what was being said but loving the attention.

Since she didn't have to do anything else to get ready for the party, Sydney decided to just sit down and cuddle with Sadie while she waited for Tucker and Julia to bring McKenzie home. She pulled the big dog's head into her lap and she leaned against the side of the couch, just content to sit in relaxation while she could. After school had started back up, she'd rarely had any free time. Between skyball practices and games, school work, her job at the vet's office and taking care of her dad and McKenzie, she didn't have a lot of opportunity to sit around and do nothing. She didn't mind being busy, but she did wish she could have a little more free time. Stroking Sadie's head she realized she hadn't been able to go on a run with her dog in a while.

She sat there for a few more minutes until she heard her front door opening and voices drifting to hear ears.

"...it was big as a house! I saws it!"

"No way, Kenz. There are very few elcor who come to Earth, and if they did, they wouldn't be hiding in the forest," she heard Julia say.

"Yah-huh! You ands Tuck-Tuck weren't looking, but I saw it in the twees!" McKenzie argued back. She'd been fixated on elcor because of her love of the vid show and always said she saw them. They knew she was lying, but she loved to try and convince them that she was right.

"Kenzie-bear, are you making up silly stories about elcor again?" she shouted to her little sister from the living room.

McKenzie raced into the den and put her hands on her hips. "Nuh-uh! I saw it, I saw it!" she tried to defend, but then Sadie was upon her and was snuffling and licking the little girl. No one was second to Sydney for Sadie, but her dog adored the youngest sibling. Sadie would always let Kenzie wrestle with her and would never bite or growl at her. Sydney just smiled when she saw the blonde wrap her arms around Sadie's neck and give her a big hug.

"Are you sure it wasn't just a big doggie like Sadie that you saw?" Sydney teased her sister.

"No!" Sydney just looked at her and McKenzie sighed. "Okay... MAYBES it was a big animal... But only maybes!"

Sydney just laughed and kissed her sister on the head. "Whatever you say, Kenzie-bear, whatever you say." She looked up as her two best friends entered the living room. "Thanks for taking her out, guys. I got everything set up and now we can just wait for the little crazies to be dropped off by their parents." She had roped her friends into helping her run the party and watch after the kids, making sure Julia swore to keep a tight rein on her language.

"McKenzie, why don't you go change into your birthday clothes and then we can wait down here for all your friends to come," Sydney told her sister. The little girl nodded and bounded up the stairs to go change.

"Do you have any vodka, I'm going to need it if my nerves are going to survive 10 screeching gremlins all afternoon," Julia joked as she sunk into the couch with a sigh. "Damn, how did you get us to agree to this?"

Tucker threw a pillow at her face while Sydney laughed. "Well, because you're my bestest friend in the whole world and you love me so much," she said with a fake little kid voice, batting her eyelashes.

Julia groaned and took the pillow Tucker threw at her and smothered her face with it. Her voice was muffled as she spoke, "This is why I like having older siblings, I never had to look out for stupid little kids." They both knew she mostly detested her older siblings, but let her complain anyway.

"Are you telling me you don't like McKenzie?" Sydney asked, pretending to be deeply offended. Then it was her turn to get a pillow to the face as Julia chucked the cushion at her.

"Shut up, Kenzie is the exception to everything. She's nowhere near as annoying as most kids," Julia stated, and then said under her breath, "unlike you two."

Tucker just threw another pillow at her.

-.-.-.-.-

Once the kids arrived, it was barely controlled chaos at the Shepard home. They were little whirlwinds of energy and hectic movement. They loved the decorations and the holos that bedecked the house and told McKenzie she had the best sister ever, most complaining that their siblings wouldn't do anything like that for them. McKenzie just nodded her head because she knew it was pretty obvious her sissy was the best.

Sydney had been right, the kids didn't even notice that the cake had been messed up since all they wanted to do was shove as much of it in their mouths as possible. Julia and Tucker, however, had snickered at the mutilated elcor and gave her a hard time about it throughout the party.

All the kids were in the living room playing games when all of a sudden the front door busted open loudly. A bunch of the little kids screamed and a few started crying as a man stumbled in and collapsed on the floor. Sydney quickly commanded Tucker and Julia to gather all the kids up and take them into the back yard and get them started on the piñata that was set up. She hoped that whacking something with a stick and scrambling around for candy would help them forget about the bedraggled man passed out in the entry way.

After making sure all the kids went outside, she turned back toward the figure with bitter rage in her eyes. She was filled with righteous anger and a wave of fierce contempt cut its way through her body. And even though her biotics were relatively weak, she was so upset that even they were acting up and caused flickering wisps of blue energy to manifest around her hands. _Oh, HELL no!_

-.-.-.-.-

_It was morning and she found her dad in a rare moment of lucidity and wasn't going to squander the opportunity to take advantage of it. "Hey, Dad. I'm having McKenzie's birthday party tomorrow and I wanted to know if you wanted to help with it."_

_Her dad turned and looked at her with confusion. "Wait. It's her birthday already? I thought it wasn't for a few more weeks."_

_Sydney sighed and felt sadness well up inside of her. Her dad had been so out of it lately that he couldn't even remember his youngest daughter's birthday. "No, Dad. It's tomorrow, and I already have most of the things laid out, I just might need some help setting stuff up."_

_Her dad sighed and rubbed his eyes tiredly. "Sorry I forgot, hun. I'd love to help set up for it. I have some stuff I have to do for work today, but I'll come back and help you tonight, or if I get in late, tomorrow morning, how's that sound?"_

_Sydney could barely believe what she was hearing. _He... He'll actually help?_ she thought, hesitantly allowing herself to hope. "Re-really? You'll help?"_

_He sighed again and hugged his daughter. "I'm sorry, honey, for how I've been acting. I know it's been hard on you and your sister and I'm really sorry." Sydney wrapped her arms around her dad as he continued. "It's... been hard... since your mom..."_

_"I know, Dad, I know," Sydney mumbled into his shoulder, holding back tears as she hugged her dad for the first time in months and months. "We've all been having a hard time with it."_

_Her dad pulled back and looked at her."Yeah, but that doesn't excuse how I've acted. I'm going to try and get better, to be here more for you and Kenzie."_

_Sydney just nodded, a hopeful smile stretching out across her face at her dad's words._

_He smiled softly at her, the first smile she had seen on her dad's face since her birthday, and said, "I'll be back after work, okay? Then I'll help you with Kenzie's party."_

_He kissed her on the cheek and left for work, hope building up inside of Sydney for the first time in a long time. _Maybe... maybe he's getting better.

-.-.-.-.-

After he had left for work, a smile had fixed itself on Sydney's face. She had spent all day with a warm feeling in her chest, something she had hadn't felt in a long time and had almost forgotten what it felt like: Hope. Hope that her dad could finally move on after mother's death. Hope that they would be able to be a family again. Hope that they would be able to fix the rift that was slowly pulling them all apart.

She hadn't seen her dad smile in so long, and she hadn't felt his arms around her for just as long. She had missed her daddy. She hadn't realized how much until just then. She thought that maybe she would be able to be a kid again once her dad got better and started helping them. Maybe she could just be herself and not have to worry about keeping her entire family functioning. She got excited thinking about them acting like a normal family and getting to do things like sit down for dinner at night. It was hard for her to act so grown up and responsible when she was only 15. Even she forgot that what she had been going through for the past few months wasn't normal for most kids her age. The strain and the stress had started to feel like it was an inevitable part of her life and that she would have to be the grown up in the house for years to come.

All day she had been happy and excited that things were looking up for the first time since her mother's funeral. As it got closer and closer to the time her dad usually got home from work, she was almost giddy with excitement at getting to spend time with her dad again. The afternoon rolled around and while at first she got nervous when her dad didn't show up, she remembered that he had said he might not be home until night time, so she settled her nerves and decided to get dinner set up.

The afternoon rolled by slowly and as the sun started to go down, she felt herself get excited again. _Dad's going to help! He's going to get better and we'll be a family again!_ She really couldn't get a handle on her little bubble of hope and she latched onto the thought with an almost feverish desperation. Everything in her being was shying away from even the idea that it might all be for naught, and her conscious mind stuffed the idea as far into her subconscious as possible. A psychologist would have loved to point out that her brain was acting on a defensive mechanism because it knew that she wouldn't be able to handle more defeat.

McKenzie's bed time came around and she put the blonde to sleep, assuring the girl that Daddy would be home later that night. It was late enough that even her subconscious couldn't keep the doubt from creeping to the forefront of her mind. It started nagging and taunting her from the edges of her thoughts: _He played you. He lied to you. He'll never get better. You're deluding yourself. You're weak for believing. Give up on hoping._ Those destructive thoughts pulsed through her mind stronger and stronger as each hour passed and it got later and later. But still, some stubborn part of her clung to that hope she had felt earlier in the day because she would not, _could_ not, accept what seemed to be the truth.

It had been a lie.

Her dad wasn't coming home that night. He wasn't trying to get better. All the sympathy his words from earlier that morning had conjured up were slowly being turned to despair. The small part of her heart that she had kept closely guarded, the part that still harbored hope for her father and for the family that they could be again, seemed to be cracked open and bled for all it was worth. Hopelessness and utter defeat flowed into the resulting emptiness and made their festering home in a place that had once been filled with warmth. Now she knew, to a small and different extent, what must have happened to Julia when her image of family was finally shattered. And the only thing keeping her from flipping the same crazy switch that Julia had was her sister and the promise she had made to her mother on her deathbed.

So now, as she stared at the wreck that was her father, all she could do was feel anger and contempt. Somewhere deep down she knew she still loved her father, and she always would, but it was a very small voice that was being overwhelmed by the shrieks of anger, hurt and despair. Sydney wasn't someone who could hate easily or readily, but she knew that she would never be able to look at her dad the same and another little piece of her heart broke. But she was too upset to register the pain and focused her feelings of anger on the man in front of her.

She stomped into the kitchen and got a hold of a glass full of cold water. She returned to her dad's side and roughly shoved him over onto his back with her foot. She furiously flung the cold water straight into his face and stared with cold eyes as he sputtered into consciousness. When his eyes finally focused on her, he barely mumbled a confused, "Sydney," before a resounding 'crack' filled the air. It took a few extra seconds before his alcohol-deadened nerves felt the pain from the slightly biotically enhanced slap, but when they did, he dumbly touched his reddening cheek with his hand.

"Get up and go to your room. I don't want to see your fucking face again until tomorrow. And I swear, if you come out before then, I'll take all your shit and throw it out on the street." The harsh tone and utter seriousness of her voice cut through even his fuzzy mind and he realized the seriousness of his fuck up. He tried to open his mouth to form an apology but she cut him off with a growl of anger.

He clumsily crawled to his feet and tried to take a step toward her. "Syd-"

"NO!" she screamed at him. "I can't look at you right now! Get out of my sight and stay out of it!"

* * *

_A/N - __Thank you thedeadflag for letting me use the elcor loving idea :) _

_Oh, and hopefully by now you can see what I'm doing with her name...;)_


	10. Part I: I Don't Even Know You

_Warning, the M rating is definitely in effect for this chapter. _

* * *

Chapter 10 - Part I; I Don't Even Know You

_Ten months after the funeral (Aug 2187)_

That righteous fury that had overtaken Sydney the day of McKenzie's birthday party left her almost as quickly as it had come. She wasn't built to sustain such overpowering negative emotions such as anger and hatred for long periods of time, and she had instead been filled with a deep, sorrowful resignation towards her dad's condition. She recognized that nothing she could do would fix her dad or help him get better and it killed her. The part of her that loved to help people didn't want to admit defeat but the rational part of her brain overruled it as a hopeless situation and she knew something had to be done.

There hadn't been anything quite as dramatic as his display on her sister's birthday, but he never showed any signs of getting better like he had. She couldn't figure out what had caused his 'fluke' that had made her think he was on the path to recovery. She was almost glad he never seemed inclined to pretend to be recovering because another false alarm would have been devastating. The disappointment she had felt the first time when her bubble of hope had been shattered was enough to make her never want to experience that pain again.

The rest of the school year had passed rather uneventfully, relatively speaking. She'd had a great first season of skyball and had thankfully been able to stay dedicated to the sport even throughout the rollercoaster that her life had been. Academically-wise, her and Tucker had, as usual, gotten all A's. And as usual, Julia had barely passed. Her parents were livid of course, but unfortunately for them, Julia saw their fury as a victory and it only reinforced her bad habits. Anything that pissed her parents off was a plus in Julia's book.

As soon as school had ended she had moved a lot of her stuff to Julia and Tucker's houses so she could be anywhere but her house as much as possible. She had signed McKenzie up for as many summer programs as were realistic so that she could get her sister out of the house, too. She set up sleepovers at the little girl's friends houses so that she could keep her sister somewhere else over night. On nights her sister didn't have a sleep over she stayed at home, but every other night she stayed at either her best friend's house or her boyfriend's. The Rolden's completely understood the situation and were perfectly willing to let Sydney stay there as long as she needed to. And, as much as Julia's parents fought with their youngest daughter, they respected Sydney a great deal. They hoped that she would be a positive force in their daughter's life and pull her out of her rebellious tendencies. Little did they know that the influence was really running the _other_ direction, but regardless, they also opened their home willingly to her after they became privy to the situation.

Unfortunately, she knew that crashing at her friend's houses couldn't be a permanent solution. One, she wouldn't be able to stay at the Kaleen house for long. The parents of the house may have liked her, but she could only stand their uptight tendencies for so long before they started to drive her mad. And two, she couldn't stay at Tucker's house for long because, no matter how much the family adored her and would house her for as long as she needed, they couldn't afford to have her stay with them. Tucker was an only child and with just the three of them, they could manage. But Tucker's dad didn't have the most illustrious job and his mother didn't work, so they really could only support their own family somewhat comfortably. If Sydney _and_ McKenzie were added to the mix, there was no way they could carry the extra weight financially.

This forced Sydney to look at the harsh reality of her situation. Even though she would be 16 in a couple of months, there was absolutely no way she could single-handedly support her and her sister. Their dad had, finally, gotten fired, and while they were still fine because of how much their family had saved up, it wouldn't last forever. And with the extremely slim prospect of their dad getting better and getting another job, the sisters wouldn't be able to stay with their father. She knew she eventually had to address her dad's situation and somehow do something about it, but who would blame her for trying to keep together the last bits of shredded illusion that her family was still cohesive and whole.

Sydney shuddered at the thought of orphanages or foster homes for her and her sister if they couldn't find anywhere else to stay. Because she considered those as last resort, she had thrown herself into searching for another means and place for them to live. Currently she hadn't come up with much, but she knew she hadn't exhausted all her options so she hadn't given up hope.

She had brought it up a lot with Julia and Tucker in an attempt to solve her predicament. Obviously both of them offered up their homes without a second thought, but she politely, well in Tucker's case politely, explained why she couldn't stay with them permanently. Julia had reluctantly agreed to the fact that her parents were insane, but Tucker hadn't accept her reasoning as quickly. He had argued heatedly that they would have worked something, anything, out to help, but Sydney had continued to refuse until Tucker grudgingly accepted that it would have been extremely difficult to do. He brought it up every now and then, but she always quietly and kindly refused.

Besides the housing situation, Sydney's summer hadn't been half bad in terms of how summers went. The first few weeks school had let out, her and all her friends had lived it up. They stayed out all night doing stupid teenager things around town and had gone to quite a few parties. Then the novelty of summer wore off slightly and they all vegged at each other's houses being the lazy kids that they were. Sydney hadn't felt more normal in months than she did the first two months of summer. Not allowing herself to stress over the fact that she couldn't help her dad alleviated a lot of the tension that had been hanging on her shoulders. She still had to look after her sister, but McKenzie was great and rarely added to her sister's burden.

-.-.-.-.-

"Shit, why does the summer always go by so fast?" Julia moaned as they lounged in their friend Skyler's pool.

"Time flies when you're having fun?" Tucker quiped.

Julia lowered her sunglasses and scowled at him, raking her hand across the water and splashing him. "Don't be a smart ass," she grumped.

"Hey, don't be hateful. Don't ask a question that you don't want an answer to," the blonde boy retorted.

Julia just snorted, "Whatever," and closed her eyes.

"She is right, though. It sucks that we only have a few more weeks until school starts," the owner of the pool added. His house had been a central hang out point for their group of friends since he was the only one with a house big enough for a pool.

"Yeah, it feels like we barely got to do anything at all," their friend Darci pouted.

Carla rolled her eyes. "I seem to recall that you were busy going on cruises with your parents all summer, so don't you freaking complain about time slipping by."

"Oh right, and _I_ seem to recall that you decided to sleep your way through Europe a few weeks ago," Darci shot back at the older girl. Everyone else laughed at the blush that exploded across Carla's face because it was a half-way true accusation.

Tucker looked semi-shocked because Carla wasn't really a promiscuous girl. Sydney was the one to splash him then to wipe the look off his face. "Jeez, Tuck, she didn't _actually_ sleep with them-"

"So you say," Julia muttered, earning a mock glare from Sydney at being interrupted.

"Ahem. She just sort of rampage dated. Although I guess..." she trailed off.

"No! I'm not some slut like Julia over there," a laugh from the group at the long standing joke which wasn't even remotely true, "I just... sampled many different cultured members of the opposite sex," Carla defended. And she really hadn't slept with anyone, but she had _definitely_ enjoyed herself.

All the boys in the group made disgusted faces and pretended to gag, which earned them splashes from the girls, which led to an all out water fight. It only died down because Skyler's mother said she wouldn't bring them food if they got her wet. After eating, they settle down under the patio and tried to decide how they were going to spend their last few weeks of freedom.

After some discussion, Julia shut them all up and just said, "Let's throw the biggest fucking end-of-summer party for our whole class."

"Shit, Julia, that's like 600 people, are you an idiot?" Skyler pointed out.

The petite raven-haired girl glared at him somewhat for raining on her parade but, had to admit it was somewhat outrageous. "Okay, fine. Not everyone, but all the people we know," she amended. "It'll be hella awesome and people would love us for it."

Most of the friends nodded in agreement, Tucker obviously just scowled, and decided it was a pretty great idea. "But where would we have it? Even if we only invited 100 or so people that's a lot of space and a lot of booze," Carla pointed out.

"Fucking logistics," Julia muttered, but cleared her throat and spoke louder. "Alright, those are legitimate problems, but we have at least two weeks to figure that shit out. I say we have it the weekend before school starts so it'll be the last fun thing on everyone's mind. That way everyone will be talking about how kick-ass our party was when classes start."

They all agreed to that and started planning.

-.-.-.-.-

The first week before they planned to have the party seemed to whizz by as they all fervently hammered out the details for the party that they had decided to throw. Coming up with the location had been the hardest, but one of their more... shady friends, had told them that he knew of an abandoned warehouse downtown. They had been extremely skeptical at first, but once they all went down to check it out, Tucker dragged by Sydney and Julia, they realized it would be perfect. Not to mention, Julia knew how to bypass the locks on the doors and how to hack the mainframe of the warehouse's security system to make it seem like they hadn't even been there. And because of its size, the group realized they could invite way more than 100 people. It also hadn't been in as poor a condition as they originally thought it was going to be, with the main hanger mainly just having a few dusty old boxes shoved against one wall and all the offices on the second floor being in great shape.

They also decided that since they were going to invite a lot more people, they would charge a miniscule fee of 1 or 2 credits at the door to help them cover the cost of the booze, which they were all fronting the money for themselves. They figured they could make the party almost club-like, and therefore people wouldn't mind paying the ridiculously small payment before entering. They figured the warehouse could hold up to 400 people or thereabouts, so they thought they'd be able to cover the cost pretty easily.

Julia knew she could reroute all the speakers in the building and link them up to someone's omni-tool for all the music. Pretty unanimously they decide to let Skyler be the DJ because he easily had the best taste in music out of the lot of them. He eagerly jumped into his roll and spent all his time coming up with a huge playlist of all the most popular galactic hits. He became exempt from the rest of the planning process because of his new duties. He'd have to come up with _hours_ of good music, so they left him to his research and musical selection.

Besides music and dancing, they figured there should be some other activities for people to do, so along an entire wall they decided to set up holographic simulators for everything from snowboarding to a weird salarian game that involved a lot of jumping. The people who didn't get too wasted would enjoy and appreciate those. The only problem with that was Julia didn't know how to get a hold of all of them through her magnificent hacking abilities, so they did have to rent a couple, the cost of which would hopefully still be covered by their entrance fee.

When Tucker was done being horrified, he gradually realized how impressive the whole set up was and how much effort his friends were putting into it. He didn't want to come off as too much of a hypocrite, because he did go to a few parties, but he was reluctant with this one because _he'd_ never thrown a big party before, and neither really had anyone else in their group. He initially stayed somewhat removed from all of the planning, but slowly got into the preparations as the party got closer. He even somehow got roped into make invitations for the whole thing.

All in all, when everything was smoothed out and accounted for, they figured they had a really good shot of pulling the party off. They were going a little old school by just having tubs of ice for the drinks, but renting an actually frosting machine like most bars used would have been way too expensive. So when they tallied all the costs up, they figured that if the full 400 showed up and they just charged 1 credit, they would be good and covered.

They had a little under a week after everything was said and done before the party, so they sent out the secret invitation to people's omni-tools. They emphasized that it was a secret party for their grade only and listed the where and the when for people. Julia added her own little snipit to the bottom of the message that read: 'I know you will fucking tell people no matter how secret we make this shit, but at least keep it in the 'fam', okay assholes? Don't fucking tell the upperclassmen; we're gonna make them jealous as shit when they hear about the best damn party ever that the freshman had. So keep your fucking mouths shut!' She even signed her name by it, which instantly made people laugh and relax because, even if they had previously been pissed about being cussed out, it was Julia, and everyone knew she was nuts. But for the most part, the future sophomore class kept the event to themselves.

-.-.-.-.-

Sydney made sure that her little sister had somewhere to sleep over the night of the party so she wouldn't have to worry about her. She knew she'd end up crashing at Julia or Tucker's house after the thing was over and she felt a lot better about it knowing McKenzie would be with an adult.

They'd decided to have the party the last Friday night before school started back up so kids would have the whole weekend to recuperate. Her, Julia and all their friends were running around getting everything ready for the night; making sure they had all the drinks ready, making sure none of the sims shorted out (which some had, making Julia flip her shit), and making sure that they'd thoroughly hacked into the security of the warehouse so they wouldn't get busted. They, which basically meant Julia, had added as much sound dampening software to the mainframe as they could so that the music wouldn't escape the walls of the warehouse. They'd tested it a couple of times earlier in the day and, for the most part, it worked. Thankfully, the building wasn't in a highly populated area so there wasn't a very high chance someone would hear them and call the police to complain.

Sydney was back at her house getting ready since there was only an hour before she was going to show up to the party. Julia had assured her that she wouldn't need to be there early, so she figured she'd arrive when it was starting to get into full swing so she could see it in all its glory.

She had dropped McKenzie off at the friend's house that she was staying the night at and was now getting ready. She went to her closet to get the outfit she was going to wear and laid it out on her bed before she went to go take a shower. Afterwards, she toweled off most of the dampness from her hair and then stood in front of the mirror to braid it up into an intricate style that her mom had taught her. It was great for the party because not only would it keep her hair out of her face, it also looked amazing. Not that anyone would really be paying attention to her hair, but it made her feel good.

She went back to her bed and pulled on her clothes, which consisted of a white tanktop with thin layers of fabric flowing down it and a loose, sky blue skirt that flowed to just above her knees. It was summer time and it was almost unbearable hot on some days and beyond humid. There was a chance the temperature would drop a few degrees as the sun went down, but the humidity would remain hanging thickly in the air. And she knew the inside of the warehouse would be sweltering after a few hours, so she dressed in as little fabric as possible but as modest as she was able. She put on the necklace her mom had given her when she turned 10, which had a little sheep charm on the end, and slipped on her sandals (no way in hell was she going to be stupid enough to wear heels) and went down stairs to eat before Tucker came to get her. She'd have to drive of course, but it was the gesture that counted.

She skipped down into the kitchen to grab some food but stopped dead when she saw who else was in the kitchen as well. He was leaning on the counter sipping some water and scrolling through things on his omni-tool. He hadn't noticed her yet and she was staying frozen at the entrance to the kitchen just staring at him because... _Is that a fucking smile?_

She made a weird choking sound in the back of her throat and that alerted her dad to her presence. They looked at each other for a few seconds before he smiled, yes _smiled_, at her bigger and set his water down. "Hey, honey. How are you?"

Sydney couldn't even form coherent words when he spoke and all she did was blink at him in utter surprise and confusion. "Wha...?"

His forehead crinkled at her loss of words and he walked over and started to put his arm around her. Every muscle in Sydney's body locked up and froze as his warm arm wrapped around her upper body and pulled her into a side hug. She then almost fainted from bewilderment when he kissed her forehead. After the fiasco of McKenzie's birthday, she hadn't had any physical contact with her dad whatsoever, so her mind was shrieking in confusion with the sudden affection.

Frowning a bit at the tenseness he felt from her, he asked, "Are you alright? You look pale." His tone held concern and love and it freaked Sydney out.

She was freaking out because one, her father was awake. She couldn't remember the last time they had crossed paths with each other. Two, he _smiled_. That in and of itself was the leading contributor to her currently muddled state. And three, he was talking as if he didn't have a care in the world, like his months of erratic and destructive behavior hadn't happened. All those things were flying around in her head and the only thing that made its way out was, "Oh. I'm just hungry."

_What the hell?! No, I'm not just hungry, what the fuck is going on?_ she berated herself. All she managed was 'hungry'? What was wrong with her?

The statement made her dad's smile return and he went to the fridge saying, "Oh, I'll make you something to eat." He rummaged around and listed off some things, "I could make some pizza, or spaghetti. Or it looks like we have some left over grilled chicken."

_That's because I made that yesterday for me and McKenzie!_ her mind raged, but she still just stood there frozen, like her body wasn't allowing her to act adversely to the situation even if her brain was screaming at her. She'd wanted this normalness for so long that it seemed her muscles were moving on autopilot to take advantage of the situation. "Grilled chicken sounds good," she eeped out.

"Alrighty," he said cheerfully. Jake pulled out the container and put the chicken on a plate before he stuck it in the microwave. He turned back to look at her and noticed she still hadn't moved. "Are you sure you're okay, honey? You seem a little off."

_Hell yes I'm 'off'! Who the hell are you and what have you done with my dad? _"Uh.. I'm fine? Hungry..." was all she repeated. She somehow drifted to the kitchen table and sat down, waiting for the food to finish heating up. She cleared her throat and allowed some of what she was thinking to slip out, "How... Do you feel okay?"

Her dad looked at her like she was being silly and said, "Of course I feel okay. Why do you ask?"

"You... I mean..." she stuttered to a halt. _Does he really not realize what he's been doing?_ "You've been... sick. Don't you remember?"

He scrunched his face up like he was trying to remember a really old memory, but then shrugged. "I don't remember being sick. But even if I was, I feel fine now. Great, really," he finished with a smile.

_Jeez, that smile's creeping me out... How in the world can he not remember? How can he be acting like it was nothing?_ "That's... uh, good," was all Sydney managed. _What is happening...?_

The microwave beeped and he hopped up to get it for her. He set the plate of chicken down in front of her and got her a fork and knife. He also got another cup of water and set down by her as well. Sydney was too stunned to move for a few moments and just sat there staring at her food dumbly. _When was the last time someone else served me food instead of the other way around..._

"Well, aren't you going to eat?" he inquired, "You look like you need it."

"Uh-huh..." She mechanically reached out and picked up her utensils and started to cut the chicken. She barely tasted it as the food moved down her throat and she continued to stare dazedly at her dad. He had returned to his omni and was scrolling back through it.

After a silent, and, on her end, awkward meal, she set her fork down and leaned back in her chair, admitting that she did feel better after eating. _Okay. Focus. There has to be a reason for this._

She cleared her throat to get his attention but before she could talk, he said, "Oh, you're done. Here, let me clean up for you." He leaned over and picked up her plate, placing he fork and knife on it, and took them to the washer.

"Thanks," was all she weakly said. She berated herself and imagined Julia yelling at her, _Get it the fuck together, sheep-head._ She shook her head and refocused on her dad. She cleared her throat again and said, "Dad."

He turned to look at her with the strangest look on his face that she had ever seen. "'Dad'? Why'd you call me that, honey?"

Her jaw hung open like he had lost his mind. "Be-because you're my dad... Duh."

He walked over to her with a look of great concern on his face and knelt down by her chair. He raised a hand to her forehead to see if she felt warm. "You really don't look very good. I'll make you some tea and you can lay on the couch." He then trailed his hand down her face and cupped her cheek before...

Planting a small kiss right on her lips.

Her mind was absolutely blank for two seconds before Sydney exploded out of her chair, knocking it onto the floor, and brutally shoved her dad backwards. "WHAT THE FUCK?!" she screamed. Her eyes were wild and her breath was heaving from utter shock and revulsion. "DAD! What the HELL is WRONG with you?!"

Jake had just as much confusion in his eyes as she did but without the disgust. "Woah, calm down. What's the matter, Hannah?"

The name brought her to a complete and absolute standstill, not a muscle in her body moved as she locked up, but her brain went into overdrive. _What the FUCK?! Shit, shit WHAT? Fucking hell?! WHAT?! Hannah? He thinks I'm MOM?!_

"H-Hannah?" she choked out, not fully registering what he had just said. "W-Why did you call me that?"

He slowly stood up, keeping his eyes on hers at all times. "Because that's your name, sweetheart. Hannah." He reached out a hand toward her and that snapped her out of her frozen haze.

She smacked his outstretched limb away from her as hard as she could and she backed up away from him, terrified. Horror etched its way across her face as realization dawned on her; her dad's behavior of the past couple of minutes clicking into place with awful clarity. _He... he thinks I'm Mom... He... Shit, he thinks..._

"Dad..." she stated slowly and quietly, like she was trying to calm a snarling beast. "Dad, Mom is gone. I'm Sydney, your daughter." She tried to keep her voice as rational and calm as possible, but she still continued to back away from him. The part of her brain that had grown up since her mother's death and taken on the role as caretaking in the house was trying to get through to her dad, but the teenage kid part of Sydney, which was losing out only by the tiniest of margins, was babbling incoherently with fear and terror. _No... fuck, God, no. Shit, what do I do. Shit. FUCK!_

"Sydney?" Jake snorted. "You'd think I'd know my own daughter. Hannah, why are you acting so strangely? I think you're the one who's sick," he said, and took a step toward her.

That step forward was all it took for the terrified, teenage Sydney to break out from underneath the rational adult part of her brain. She picked up the chair that was on the floor and she chucked it at him screaming, "You stay the fucking HELL away from me!" Tears started to roll down her face as she backed away further and out of the kitchen. "Oh God, oh God. Shit, stay away from me," she sobbed.

"Han-"

"NO!" she shrieked, "Get the fuck away from me!" She turned and bolted through the living room towards the front door. She ripped it open and stumbled down her driveway and onto the street. She sprinted away from her house and with liquid fear trailing down her cheeks, all she could choke out was "God, no..."

She continued down the street until a voice in the dark called out to her, "Sydney?"

It was like her feet were bolted to the ground and her muscles froze on the spot. Someone came up behind her and wrapped their arms around her. The touch snapped her from her stationary position and she started thrashing and screaming incoherently, "No! Please, no! Get away from me! Mom's gone! She's gone, leave me alone!"

But when the voice spoke again, and all she heard was concern and love she stopped mid-punch and listened to his soothing voice. "Syd, it's alright, I've got you," he murmured into her hair, "Shh, I'm right here, I'm not letting go."

The calmness and security of his words seeped into her haze of terror and slowly wrapped around the panic in her mind. Instinctively she turned in his embrace and wrapped her arms around his waist and crushed herself against his chest, her tears staining his shirt as they continued to fall unchecked down her face. A gentle hand caressed her hair and another rubbed warm, soothing circles on her back. "I've got you. You're safe," he whispered one more time.

"Tucker," she choked out through her throat that was tight with anguish and clutched him tighter. "Tuck..." He held her in the middle of the street as her body was wracked with sobs. Slowly, she calmed down in the encirclement of his strong arms and she eventually pulled away to look up at him with blood shot eyes. He saw absolute horror in her eyes and the terror in them shook him to the bone. But, the soul-clenching fear slowly become overshadowed by betrayal and anger until all he saw was steely fury and enraged hurt. Her only words were, "Get me out of here."

* * *

_A/N - So... yeah, basically wtf right? Yeah... 10 and 11 were originally one chapter, but it grew too big so I split it. And now you get left with the mother of all cliffhangers. But hey, it matches my mood:_

_It seems I spoke too soon in my author's note from chapter 5. I'd said I'd never been to a funeral of someone really close to me (thank goodness) but this week I'll being going to my grandpa's. So I'll upload this one, let you hate me for leaving you at such a cliff hanger, and hopefully sometime after the funeral (which is on tuesday) I'll upload the next part. I never wanted real life to mess with this, but it seems I was being a wee bit optimistic with that. You guys are awesome though, and it makes my day when I see how much you guys have taken to this story. So. Keep being awesome, and I'll get my sh*t together as soon as I can and get back to you. _


	11. Part II: You Don't Even Know Me

Chapter 11 (10.5) - Part II; You Don't Even Know Me

_Night of the party (August 2187)_

A random freshman was waiting in the massively huge line that snaked away from the front of the warehouse and she was bouncing up and down on her toes with barely contained exuberance. She had never been to a party before and she was beyond excited that she had gotten an invitation to this one. She'd been nervous before, having to lie to her parents and sneak out of her house, but now that she had arrived, the atmosphere of the place and of all the kids in the line seemed to rip away her the tenseness and replaced it with a simmering energy. She explained as much to her friends.

Someone in front of her in line overheard her animated twittering and snorted, saying, "Well, this is going to screw you over then. You'll be ruined because I'm pretty sure any party you ever go to from now on is going to suck compared to this one." A couple of people nodded at the statement and he added, "Plus, that crazy chick Kaleen set this thing up so I can promise you it's going to be nuts."

This just reinforced the mounting thrill in the virginal party-goer even more and added to her increasing excitement. It took almost another 15 minutes before she reached the front of line, and as each person in front of her was swallowed up into the doorway of the warehouse, she grew more and more giddy. By the time she reached the front and the kid stationed there collected the credit entrance fee from her omni-tool, she and her friends were beyond ready to be inside.

And boy, had that kid in front of her been right.

The inside of the warehouse was utter, beautiful madness. Every color of light was flashing across her vision and a rapid strobe light that coated every surface of the vast building caused people to look as if they were moving like wild beings. Every other second of their movements was cropped from her sight and it caused the most fascinating scene she had ever seen. Hundreds of bodies were pressed against each other in a haze of flushed skin, and jumbles of heated emotions seemed to rise up from the dance floor and engulf everyone in the room. It was a mad cacophony of contorting limbs and sweaty bodies that gave the party the irrevocable feel of a high-end dance club. The deep bass of the music pulsated through her bones and seemed to vibrate her very soul, and the synthetic weaving of the higher notes swung melodiously through her mind.

The freshman felt like she had been transported completely off of Earth and thrust into a world of barely concealed passion and ever-rising energy. She was transfixed at the entrance of the warehouse, the life-force of the place sweeping over her, until her friends grabbed her arm and dragged her into the writhing throng.

They discovered that all the way across the 'dance zone', which really just consisted of the middle of the warehouse floor, along the back wall, the drinks were stashed in a seemingly endless number of tubs in all sorts of shapes and sizes. One guy was standing by them and refilling them as he saw necessary.

Her and her friends were also struck with awe when they saw the vast wall that was lined with over a dozen different holo sim games. They grabbed drinks without even looking at what they snatched up and dashed over to the game wall to check out the variety. Almost all the holos had short lines queued up behind them, but watching some of the other kids play was almost just as fun as trying it out themselves. After watching different sims for a while, they hopped in line and eagerly awaited their turns.

For some reason the holos grew harder to utilize as more drinks were consumed, but they didn't care much because they also seemed to get much more entertaining. Not only to participate in, but also to watch as their drunken friends attempted to remain coordinated enough to play. After almost an hour of hanging out around the wall of simulations, they regrouped and clung to each other unstably as they stumbled into the mass of writhing flesh that was the dance floor. Every sense was consumed by the swell of bodies around them and soon they lost themselves in the rhythm and the flow of the music.

It was hard to determine where one body ended and another began as strangers and friends alike were entwined by the beat of the music. The people on the dance floor seemed to absorb energy from those around them and no one appeared willing to break away from the crowd unless they absolutely could not stand any longer; once you were in it, you never wanted to get out of it.

For a lot of the kids in the room, this was their first real high school party, and like the stranger had declared at the beginning of the night, it ruined many of the young people. It was a shame, really, that for so many people the best party they would ever attend would be their first one because almost all others would pale in comparison to this mad revelry that Julia, Sydney and their friends had thrown. Not that other avid party-goers weren't having their standards blown to hell, but at least they had gotten to enjoy a few lower-end parties before having all other future escapades ruined beyond hope. At least that's what Julia was telling herself anyway.

Reluctantly she conceded that there might be other parties yet to come that would rival the one she was currently residing over, but she knew this would be one to remember. _Hell, if I hadn't thrown this and was just one of those randos in there, this would be tearing up my future expectations, _she gleefully admitted.

Currently, Julia was in what she assumed was the manager's office because it had a large window overlooking the entire warehouse, and she was contentedly watching everyone below. Okay, she was beyond content; she was giddily ecstatic with how well the whole thing was going, but she had a bad-ass image to uphold, so she couldn't be too giggly. The rest of the friends who had put the party together, those who weren't overseeing their duties on the actual warehouse floor, were also up there with her and they were having their own miniature bash. They had shoved the desk out of the way and had dragged in a couple of other couches from the surrounding offices so that they all had something somewhat comfortable to lounge on.

Skyler was in his own little corner tapping away on his omni-tool continuing to monitor the music and tweak his playlist as the night wore on, Carla was splayed out on a couch with her face glued to some other guy, and Darci, who was one of those people who got loud when they were drunk, was slurring with impressive volume about how kick-ass the party was. Their other friends were draped around the room at varying levels of intoxication enjoying themselves immensely.

Julia had chosen to stay somewhat sober to make sure she could deal with anything if problems came up, so when Sydney and Tucker busted into the room and slammed the office door shut, she was one of the only ones who was startled. She saw the angry glint in Sydney's eyes and the extremely worried one in Tucker's and she had a suspicion that something had gone down at the Shepard's house not too long prior. Her hunch was confirmed when her best friend went straight for the cooler in the room and pulled out the strongest drink she could find. (Another thing Tucker was disgruntled at the petite girl for, Julia had educated Sydney in the wonderful ways of alcoholic beverages, so she now knew her way around the world of booze).

Sydney forcefully ripped the lid off the drink and took a long, deep swallow from the top. Julia raised an eyebrow at the strange behavior but held her tongue. Tucker continued to hover around the brunette with apprehension written clearly across his face. Julia knew Tucker was always worried about Sydney when she drank and almost always said something about it or tried to dissuade her, so the fact that he said nothing as his girlfriend guzzled the alcohol spoke volumes to Julia about the situation. _Aw shit, it's bad..._

She covertly caught the blonde boy's attention and pointed out an empty couch in the large office, indicating that he should at least get their friend seated before she got too badly wasted. As Tucker gently started guiding Sydney toward the vacant couch, she hastily snatched up another drink before she got out of range of the cooler. By the time she was seated on the couch comfortably, Sydney was swallowing the last dredges of her first drink and tossed it off to the side without care. She went straight to the lid of the second one and popped it off with ease as well.

At that, Tucker made a quiet noise of disagreement and attempted to hold her arm down so she couldn't bring the drink to her mouth. Sydney stilled and looked at the offending hand on her forearm before she slowly raked her gaze up to his eyes. The anger and hurt that he saw in them convinced him that he didn't want to get on her bad side at the moment, so he reluctantly pulled his hand away and watched in quiet sadness as she started downing the second drink.

Julia was watching the whole thing with careful scrutiny and realized that something was seriously wrong. Sydney would almost always be... hesitant when drinking, even if she was doing it of her own will, so the abandon with which she was consuming alcohol now was raising a lot of red flags. _Shit... what happened?_

Tucker looked at Julia and saw her questioning stare, but all he could do was shrug dejectedly; he didn't know much more than she did. Thankfully, no one else in the room was aware of the dark storm that hovered around Sydney and Tucker and they continued on with their antics. Julia was glad because she didn't want any more trouble coming Sydney's way than there already was.

The second drink went down almost as quickly as the first, but Sydney didn't reach for a third just yet. She stared down at the empty drink in her hands and realized she was clenching it so tightly her knuckles were turning white. She tried to breathe in and out a few times to calm the tension in her body but it only worked marginally. She felt eyes on her and looked up to notice that her two best friends were both staring at her intently. Tucker with an abundance of worry and Julia with, if a bit confused, a knowing look.

She knew it was logical for her friends to be mystified with her erratic and out of character behavior, but she wished they would just let her be for one night and allow her to forget all the insanity that had happened only moments before. Even though Tucker didn't have his actual skycar license yet, he pretty much knew how to fly one so he had driven them to the warehouse while she tried to get herself together and appear presentable. They had parked behind the big building and entered through the back door near the stairs that led to the offices. Tucker figured that the less people they encountered on their way in the better. They'd made their way into the executive office and Sydney had gone straight for the alcohol.

The liquid had burned more so than usual as it passed down her aching throat, but the numbness that had followed had been blissful. The second had gone down even easier and by the time she finished the second drink, she was already feeling the effects on her mind. The terror, fury and bewilderment that was swirling around viciously in her brain was slowly beginning to erode as the alcohol dulled the raw edges. The only thing it couldn't seem to touch was the memory of her own father's lips pressed against hers. A shiver of utter revulsion swept down her spine and she cringed and tried to shy away from the image. _Make it go away..._

She looked around the room and at everyone in it and tried to find something that would help her obliterate the picture and feeling from her mind and body. Her eyes landed on Carla and the guy she was making out with and an idea leapt to the forefront of her mind. She turned her gaze to Tucker and eyed him hungrily

He had little warning before her lips savagely locked onto his and she crushed her body against him. He was startled by her forward attack and his confusion allowed her to thrust her tongue deep into his mouth. There was nothing gentle or caring in the searing heat of her kiss, only desperation and wretched need.

At first his mouth responded automatically to her touch and his lips acted of their own accord at the practiced act of kissing. But then his mind caught up with his body and tried to halt the natural reaction. "S..." he tried to get out, calling her by the monomer that she'd asked them to address her by, in an attempt to reach her mind rationally. "Babe, you're not-"

Her strength took him by surprise and she reclosed the distance between their lips quickly, endeavoring to get him to stop talking. _Shut up. This has to work... This has to..._ was all her mind desperately chanted as she molded her lips back against his. She barely registered the cat-calls and wolf whistles that their friends were throwing their way as she snaked her hand under his shirt.

Tucker yelped at the skin on skin contact and tried to pull away yet again. "Sy-"

"Don't!" She half demanded half pleaded, her eyes filled with such miserable emotion that Tucker couldn't pull more than a few inches away. "Tucker, please," she begged.

He opened his mouth to answer but stopped when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up quickly to the owner of the hand and saw the hard look in her eyes. Julia nodded to the door and said, "Not here. There's an office down the hall with another couch. Fourth on the right." She tugged on both their arms and softly but firmly pushed them towards the door.

As they exited the manager's office, the voices of their friends flowed over them before Julia shut the door behind them. "Damn! Rolden's gettin' lucky to-" and then the entrance to the office cut off his words.

Tucker blushed and swallowed with embarrassment and nervousness, but Sydney didn't seem deterred at all, as if she hadn't even registered the words. She just tugged him down the hallway until they reached the door Julia had told them about. The number on the door labeled it as 256B and Sydney snorted. Tucker looked at her with confusion when he heard the noise, but wasn't privy to her inner thoughts and didn't know why she had done so.

_Of course it's the same number as my mom's hospital room. Fucking irony of the universe,_ she allowed to drift through her thoughts with a snort, but pushed it away as quickly as it had come, focusing back on her objective. The image of her father in the kitchen quickly galvanized her into action and she yanked Tucker through the doorway and into the dark room. With the door shut behind them, they could barely hear the music, only feeling the pulsing bass beat through the floor beneath their feet.

Surprising him yet again, Sydney turned on him lightning quick and shoved him down onto the couch before he could even react. Her shirt hit the metal floor just as quickly and before he could protest again, her lips descended back onto his and pressed him deeper into the cushions.

Her mouth burned across his as her tongue invade his lips once again. Her heated hands left trails of smoldering arousal across his abdomen as her fingers grazed across the skin under his shirt. Her covered breasts pressed against his upper chest and he involuntarily groaned into her mouth as the different points of assault set his body ablaze.

The rational part of his brain was warring with this hormonal teenage side of this brain in an attempt to figure out how to respond to her advances. He knew that what she was doing and what she wanted from him was a purely reactionary reflex from whatever had happened at her house, and he knew that if she were thinking even remotely rationally, she wouldn't want it to happen this way. The chemicals in his body were trying extremely hard to shut him up and to accept the heated passion coming from the girl on top of him.

Not passion; desperation.

_She doesn't want this. Not like this. _When his mind made the distinction, his rational side was easily able to squash his body's hormones. He gripped her arms firmly and in one swift movement, pulled her smaller body away from his and got himself into an upright, sitting position. She growled with frustration but he silenced her with a word.

"Sydney Shepard, stop."

It was either his firm tone, the use of her full name, the strong arms restraining her or a combination of all three that finally got her to stop her blistering attack on his body. She held utterly immobile for almost a full five seconds before her entire demeanor wilted and she slumped against the hands restraining her. He saw the fight seep out of her and he immediately pulled her back toward him and enveloped her in his embrace. She curled up under his chin and he gripped her tightly with strong arms.

"Tuck..." she whispered feebly against his chest, her arms weakly clutching his shirt. "He... My dad... Oh God, Tucker," was all she could get out before she broke down again. Her sobs rolled up from deep within her and shook her whole frame.

As much as it broke his heart to see her in so much anguish, he knew he had made the right decision in stopping her from using him to escape her problems. And as the story of the night's events were slowly recounted to him, his choice was continually reinforced. What Jake had done was beyond messed up, but her solution to try and dissolve the memory from her mind was not the right answer. Tucker knew that if she had allowed herself to have sex with him like she had so obviously tired to, not only would it have _not_ rid her of the images of the night, she wouldn't have been ready for it and it would have probably ruined their relationship.

But being right had never felt so awful before. In an attempt to console them both, he just continued to hold her warmly and let her cry herself out in his arms. Since the night of Hannah's death, he hadn't seen her more exhausted or so deeply affected by anything than she was right now. But after almost an hour, after the entirety of the story had been laid out in the open and all the tears had been shed, Sydney curled up in his arms and fell asleep.

He slowly allowed himself to relax as he soothingly ran his fingers through her hair and caressed her cheek softly, but tensed up immediately when the door to the office creaked open. He was getting ready to severely chew out whoever had followed them, but stopped before a single word escaped his mouth when he saw that it was their raven haired friend. Julia poked her head into the room and, after taking in his fully clothed form and the curled up position of her best friend (ignoring the fact that she was shirtless), knew that the deed had not been done. Because she had caught on to the seriousness of the situation, she figured Tucker wouldn't have let it happen, which was the only reason she dared check on the office they were occupying in the first place. Let everyone else think that Tucker and Sydney had followed through with it, the two of them both knew better and that was all that mattered.

She silently slipped into the room and picked up the crumpled tank top on the floor as she made her way over to the couch. Tucker gently unwound Sydney's body from his and raised her arms so that Julia could tug the shirt back over her head. When their friend was fully clothed again, Julia curled up with them on the couch and wrapped her arms around Sydney's waist as Tucker slid one arm around the brunette's shoulders and rested one arm along Julia's back.

The party and everything outside the small office was forgotten as the two friends focused on each other and their grieving companion and allowed the quietness of the moment to settle over them. While the wild energy of the warehouse swirled around in the giant room below, they ignored their party for a few hours and took comfort in being together. They'd never imagined that anything in their life would have been able to get so complicated. They were just a bunch of nobody kids who goofed off and played skyball. They'd been totally average and blissfully ignorant of how demented and messed up the universe could be.

It was a strange thing to lose such innocence when they weren't ready for it. It hadn't happened gradually or naturally; it had been shoved onto them and they'd been forced to try and work through something that was way above their maturity level. Somehow they had managed, for a while anyway, but the events of the night made them realize they'd been fooling themselves to think that they'd had it all together. Sydney especially.

For the three of them, one person's burden was always equally shared with the others and they all carried the load as if it was their own. They'd been like that since they had become friends, but the issues that had been landing on them lately had made that difficult. There was no way for the other two to understand just what Sydney was going through. They supported her and loved on her as much as they could, but they could never completely feel the full effects of what Hannah's death had done to their friend.

So they were thankful for moments like these when they were able to let everything else be forgotten for a few moments and just revel in being together. They'd deal with their problems later, right now they just allowed the darkness of the room to wash over them and the steady rhythm of the bass to sink into their bodies, retreating from reality for the little while that they could.

* * *

_A/N - Second part of chapter 10 and the fallout from part one. Crap hit the fan, that's all I can say. _

_Thank you guys so much for waiting this week and all the support you guys gave me :) Intense week, but it helped being with family. And now it's back to regular life as well as we can._

_I know a lot of this stuff in the story seems like it could still be taking place in the 21st century, but they still seems like they have some stuff that's from that era. I checked the Normandy in ME3, and they had a stove, oven and sink in the kitchen area... I'm really trying to infuse as much 'ME' tech lore into this as I can, but since we don't really get to see the domestic side of the characters lives, I'm just flying by the seat of my pants. If you guys want to suggest some (realistic, please haha) technology and whatnot, it'd be fun to hear your ideas and maybe use them :)_

_(Kudos if you caught the Aria in Afterlife vibe as Julia watched the people partying in the warehouse from the office window... I couldn't resist.)_


	12. When Push Comes To Shove

Chapter 12 - When Push Comes To Shove

_One year after the funeral (October 2187)_

It had been a full year since Hannah Shepard's death. Time had seemed a funny sort of entity throughout the grieving process; racing by for some people, or crawling along for others. But, regardless of whichever stage of grief people were at, anyone who had known her still missed her. The experiences over the year, however, had varied greatly for those who had mourned her.

For some people, the loss had been deep, but the passing of the days had slowly sewn up the rip in their hearts. Other's still mourned greatly, continually wishing the past could be rewritten and that their time with Hannah could have been extended. Some looked upon her death with regret towards themselves that they hadn't told her how much she meant to them. A handful of people had been able to move past her death and reflect on her life and all the lightness it had brought. And there was evidence that some had broken under the grief like a dam strained with too much water.

The events that took place right before 'that party', as people had dubbed the huge party that Julia and her friends had thrown, proved that Jake Shepard had not dealt well with the loss of his wife. His descent into the addictive world of booze and alcohol and consumed every aspect of his life. As the months had passed, he'd needed more and more of it to block out the nightmares and memories of his beloved. He would have peace for a few weeks, and then the horrors that haunted him at night crawled up from deep in his mind and tortured his every sleeping and waking moment.

He may have been able to beat his dark side if he'd been willing to acknowledge that his wife's death had affected him so deeply. His problem was that he hadn't wanted to admit how weak he was without Hannah by his side. She had been the sun of his entire world; everything he'd done since marrying her was _for_ her. He'd loved her with every fiber of his soul, so much so that he would have _given_ her his soul if she had only asked.

And maybe that was his problem; maybe a part of him had died when her spirit had left them all on earth. But if part of his soul had been intertwined with hers, then why did it feel like absolute torture whenever he thought about her? There was no doubt in his mind that if there was a heaven, his wife was in it. In all his life he'd never met anyone as pure as Hannah, never met anyone who deserved to enter into those supposed pearly white gates more than her.

So if she was in heaven, why did it feel like he was in the deepest, darkest reaches of hell?

-.-.-.-.-

Sydney had never been more certain in her entire life about something than she was when she'd gotten home the next morning after the party. The clarity that coated her actions was absolute; she didn't have any shred of doubt about what she wanted to do. Every piece of clothing she wore on a regular basis was packed up within an hour, and everything of importance in her room followed suit soon after. She grabbed another bag for all of McKenzie's stuff and within 3 hours she'd shoved all the bags into the skycar, packed her hoverboard in the trunk, put Sadie in the front seat and left for Tucker's house. Her sister was at a friend's house and she'd go pick her up once she'd unloaded everything from the skycar.

DUring the last several months before the party, she had already been staying at her friend's houses a majority of the time, only going home when McKenzie wasn't sleeping over at someone's house. She'd avoided her dad and had barely seen him until the night of their huge party. If it hadn't of been for the smile on his face, she would have ignored him like any other night. She had berated herself over and over for allowing herself to be lulled into a false sense of hope even though she had _promised_ herself that she wouldn't fall for his 'I'm getting better act' after the fiasco on McKenzie's birthday. But it seemed like no matter how much she tried to harden her heart toward him, he was still her daddy and the little girl inside of her had still desperately wanted him to come back to her.

What terrified her the most was that her father had honest to goodness thought she'd been her mom. He wasn't trying to convince himself that Hannah was there, or overlay his wife's memory onto his daughter. His problems had pushed him so far over the edge of desperation that his brain had coped in the only way that it could in order to keep him sane; it had conjured up the thing he'd wanted the most.

She had no idea how he had reacted after her violent, terrified explosion, but she hoped that it had knocked him out of his twisted imagination and allowed him to realize just what he had done. Even though she wanted to hate him for it, a part of her heart couldn't help breaking because she knew that if he was in so much pain that he'd hallucinated that she was Hannah, he must have been living in complete anguish. No, not living. His life had dissolved long ago into a merely pitiful existence of sadness and pain.

And it wouldn't do well for her to continue to ignore his behavior anymore. She figured that he'd just been have a rough time and that he'd eventually break out of the mood that had led him to the alcohol in the first place. Looking back now she realized she'd been naive in her optimistic fantasy of his recovery. If she hadn't of been so hopeful she might have gotten her act together quicker and headed the problem off before it became such an uncontrollable beast.

"Babe, that's crazy! You _cannot _blame yourself for what your dad has done!" Tucker impressed upon her strongly. She was seated on a couch at Tucker's house working on homework while he rested his head in her lap, aimlessly flicking through the channels on the vid screen. Well, he had been until he abruptly sat up when Sydney casually mentioned that she thought she was to blame for her dad's foul choices. "You are in no way to blame for his actions. I won't let you even begin to think that!"

She turned to look at him ready to disagree, but he shook his head firmly and silenced her with a swift slashing motion of his hand. "As a teenager you are in no was responsible for an adult's choices. He's already wrought enough havoc in your life, I'm not going to let you add to it needlessly."

"Look, if I-" she began to argue, but her words were instantly dissolved as the blonde quickly covered her mouth with his lips, swallowing any arguments she might have made.

When he was sure she wasn't going to speak again, he pulled back fractionally and peered deep into her eyes, which swam with a beautiful blue hue. He could tell that the gentle and caring quality of her personality truly believed that by taking on the burdens of her father's consequences, she thought that she was 'helping' him in some way. It broke his heart to see that, in answering to her nature of helping people, she was inversely causing herself pain. He sighed quietly and kissed her gently on the forehead before looking her full in the face again. "You. Are. Not. To. Blame." He put as much conviction and certainty into the words as he could, willing her to believe what he knew was right and what she refused to accept.

She closed her eyes and seemed to be allowing his words to work on her and flow over her. After a few moments of silence, her eyelids slowly opened and she gave him a small smile. "I'll try, Tuck." She gave a him a small peck on the nose and then went back to her homework, pulling him back down into her lap again.

He gave into her gentle hands and laid back down. This back and forth disagreement had been a constant battle since school had started back up, with him and Julia having to continually fight away Sydney's philanthropic side and force her to understand that she couldn't blame herself for what had happened to Jake. If she was going off the basis of the fact that she hadn't tried to intervene when she'd seen the warning signs, then they were _all_ to blame, because they had seen it just as much as she had. For some reason she dismissed that point of logic with the argument that it wasn't their responsibility; Jake wasn't their dad. They tried to point out that they all knew each other's families almost as well as their own and that it _was_ just as much their responsibility. They also reasoned that they hadn't lived up to their roles as best friends because, in that capacity, it was their job to help her in times of crisis or trial and they had ignored the problem just as much as she had.

It was an extremely slow process, convincing Sydney that she couldn't beat herself up over things outside of her power, but they could tell they were making progress. Slow, but still there. They only worried that what they had been able to get through to her so far wouldn't be enough because their window of opportunity was shrinking quickly. Just thinking about her leaving made his heart constrict painfully and he already missed her, even if she was sitting right next to him.

When she told them that she planned on leaving, to say that he had been shocked would have been an understatement. Even after a couple of weeks it still hadn't fully sunk in, and he constantly analyzed the discussion they had had to see if there could have been any way to convince her not to leave, but by the time she had told them, her mind had been made up.

-.-.-.-.-

_"I'm leaving."_

_Tucker and Julia looked up at Sydney questioningly. "Why? You know you and Kenzie can stay at either of our houses for as long as you need to," Tucker told her. "My parents love having you over all the time."_

_Sydney just shook her head and smiled sadly at them. "Guys, I mean I'm leaving Earth."_

_No one moved for a full minute. Julia was staring at her like she was on red sand and Tucker looked like he'd been smacked upside the head. Both had confusion written all over their faces and a little bit of disbelief thrown in as well. Julia finally broke the silence first. "I think I heard you wrong because I'm pretty sure I just heard you say something incredibly fucking stupid. Because there's no fucking way you just said what I thought you said."_

_Sydney smiled weakly at her indignant friend and sighed. "No, that's what I said. I can't stay here. With-"_

_"Sydney, you can't be serious!" Tucker hollered, her name accidentally slipping across his tongue. She visibly stiffed at her first name and looked at him angrily. She had started to get used to hearing her last name being used and how often it was said, so whenever her first name was uttered, her reaction to it was becoming increasingly stronger. Very rarely did anyone slip up and call her Sydney, and even then it usually wasn't Tucker or Julia. They were one of the few that knew her reasons for dropping her given name and respected her decision. The last time Tucker had said her full name was the night of 'the party', but only because he thought it'd be the only way to get through to her. Other than that, they knew better than to address her with her first name._

_"Crap, babe, sorry, I didn't mean-"_

_"I know," Sydney said curtly. She took a few deep breaths and settled her nerves. She looked her friends in the eyes, first Tucker and then Julia, and they both saw the truth reflecting back at them, but also the turmoil. They decided to just sit back and listen because they didn't want to cause her anymore stress. _

_Sydney looked down at her hands nervously and started talking without looking at them. "I've thought a lot about this guys, probably more than I should have, but it is what it is. I spent a long time trying to look for a place to stay on Earth, I really did, but no one has the means to keep me and McKenzie long term." Tucker tried to interrupt at that statement, but the sad look Sydney gave him made him close his mouth. They'd had the argument already about his family's financial situation and she'd proven to him that it wouldn't work. He closed his mouth and nodded for her to continue._

_"There is no way Mindy could look after us. She lives in a tiny apartment in New York, is only 21, and is still in school. Aunt Cali... Well, being optimistic, I'd give her a few more years to live, but she's probably not going to be around much longer, so if we went to live with her, it would only be a matter of time before we'd be in the same predicament. And even though Kenny is my dad's best friend, I barely know him and his wife, and they have their own kids to take care of," Sydney explained._

_Julia looked at her questioningly, "Well then who are you staying with? It sounded like you've exhausted everyone." Sydney raised her eyebrow at the interruption. Julia just put up her hands with some humor in mock submission and motioned for her friend to continue._

_"As I was saying, after I determined that my family members were out, as well as my dad's best friend, the only other person I knew I could call was Mom's best friend."_

_"Aunt Karin?" Tucker asked._

_"Yeah. I was really desperate when I called her because by that point I had realized that she was the only other person we could stay with. At first I tried to make the whole thing seem like it wasn't a big deal, but you know how she is. She must have been able to hear the tense nervousness in my voice because in that no-nonsense tone she has, she demanded that I stop skirting the issue and tell her straight up what was happening," Sydney said, almost chuckling at the remembered conversation._

_Julia did laugh. "Oh God, that woman can be scary as shit when someone is trying to dupe her."_

_"Seriously. I tried to stammer out of it for a few seconds, but she pulled the whole story out of me without much of a fight. I'm pretty sure she was ready to travel here and beat Dad silly. I told her that wouldn't be necessary, but I did ask if McKenzie and I could live with her. And she said we could," she finished._

_"Wait, just like that?" Julia asked, stunned that the doctor would have given so quickly._

_Sydney rolled her eyes. "No, obviously it wasn't _that_ simple. There was a lot of apprehension and stuttering on my end, and hesitancy on her end. She made sure that there wasn't any other options and that I had seriously contemplated all the implications and changes that would come with such a move. I wasn't sure she was going to say yes for a few minutes." Sydney remembered how nervous she had been talking with Aunt Karin. And it wasn't really nervousness from the woman herself, mainly just from the terror that her last option wouldn't work out. She knew that if the older woman had declined, she and McKenzie would have been out of options and that scared her more than anything. She spent a long time on her omni-tool with her 'aunt' talking about the logistics of how the move would work, if she was completely sure, what all the ramifications of the move would be and so forth._

_Karin had been hesitant to allow Sydney and her sister to live with her not because she didn't want them, but because the doctor had gotten a job off world a few years ago and she lived on a planet not under human space. Sydney assured her that it wouldn't have mattered if she had lived as close as the moon; to her, once she cleared Earth's atmosphere, distance wasn't relevant. Once Sydney realized that no one she knew on Earth could house her and her sister, she knew that leaving was the only option. Because of that, leaving the planet was going to be a huge change no matter what, so the _where_ didn't concern her as much._

_Tucker had heard her out, but even though she explained it rationally and calmly, he still hated the idea. Julia didn't like it much either, but she wasn't as obvious with her displeasure. When Sydney finished talking, he shook his head at the whole situation. "Look, babe, I know this whole thing seriously sucks."_

_"That's the understatement of the century," Julia mumbled._

_Tucker ignored her and continued speaking, "But are you sure this is the only way? I mean, there has _got_ to be another way for you to stay on Earth. Moving is...is... It's crazy!" He threw up his hand to emphasize his point. "You're way too young to move off-world, not to mention McKenzie. And where will you go to school? What are you going to do about your dad? And..." he paused and looked at her sadly, fully realizing what a move would mean for the three of them. "And... What about us?"_

_"What, you think I'd forget about you guys? No way! You're my best friends, no, you're my freaking family. A move from Earth will never change that. Heck, no amount of _time_ will change that either," she said almost bluntly, strong conviction in her voice. "You guys are the reason that I've been able to make it this far, and I will never be able to repay you for all that you've done this past year."_

_Julia snorted. "Sheep-head, there is nothing to repay. You housed me and dealt with me when I spazzed out two years ago and you've both put up with me since then." She shook her head, "No. There will never be 'debts' between us. We have each other's backs and that's how it'll always be."_

-.-.-.-.-

So Tucker was slowly, grudgingly, accepting the situation. They knew they'd all stay friends, distance couldn't change that, but he had also wondered what would happen to him and Sydney as a couple. He hadn't known if their relationship was something else that she wanted to leave behind for her clean slate once she left Earth. She had exclaimed at that and had been completely surprised that he'd suggested it because breaking up with him hadn't even crossed her mind when she decided she was moving.

"We'll make it work," was all she had said. He was impressed with the adamancy that she had spoken with, and really hoped that they would be able to stay together. Sure, they had originally started out as friends and they would always love each other, but over the course of the year that they had been together, he had also easily fallen _in _love with her as well. And, even though it was somewhat subconscious, he harbored a small hope that maybe they'd be like the stereotypical best friend cliché and someday get married. But, the idea was pretty deeply buried, and it hadn't ever been fully thought out. Maybe it's what fueled some of his feelings toward her, but only a very, very small portion. He loved Sydney, and he'd been happy that she wanted to stay with him.

But, the knowledge that she wanted to keep dating him didn't lessen the pain from her leaving. He closed his eyes and just tried to soak up as much of her presence as he could while she was with him, taking a deep breath and inhaling her scent; the faintest trace of vanilla and the stronger aroma of almond oil from her shampoo. A lot of the girls that he hung out with wore perfumes with strong fragrances, and it's not that he didn't like them, it's just that he liked the fact that Sydney never wore anything strong, only the smell of her shampoo and the vanilla from her soap. The smell blended together seamlessly and it just complimented her as a whole, not bringing attention to anything, but being a passive trait of who she was.

He heard the almost silent taps of her fingers as she did her homework on the datapad, and wondered how she could be so collected about the situation. He still didn't fully agree with it, and wished that she would stay, but he knew that she had made up her mind so he didn't add to her stress level by being the whiny boyfriend.

Sydney heard Tucker's sigh from her lap, and glanced down at him. Seeing his eyes closed, she knew he was again thinking about her departure. Sydney knew that Tucker didn't want her to leave, and it's not like she _wanted _to be apart from him either, but unfortunately that's how the situation had played out and she wished that he would stop thinking about it so that they could spend their last week just happy being together.

A nervous but almost giddy ball of emotion grew in the pit of her stomach as she thought about leaving Earth. She was pretty much terrified of the move because she would be going away from everything she had ever known. She'd lived in the same house her whole life, it was the only home she had ever known. And her best friend's houses had been her second homes, and they'd never moved since they'd all become friends. The loss of familiarity was daunting and was what fueled most of her nervousness from leaving.

But... There was a small part of her that was excited to leave. She'd never lost the desire to explore the universe, and her inner child was bubbling with happiness that her dream of travelling through the stars would finally be happening. She wished it could have been under better circumstance, but she was going to take what was given to her because the opportunity to leave probably would have been many years in the future if things hadn't happened the way they had.

Besides the nervousness of facing the unknown and leaving behind everything she had ever known, the only other thing that had added stress to the situation had been explaining to McKenzie that they were leaving. Sydney had told her sister a few weeks ago, and at first the little girl hadn't understood what she meant. 'Earth' and 'other planets' were still pretty abstracts concepts to a six and a half year old, and Sydney had had a hard time explaining what was going to happen.

She also felt a little bit guilty because she'd technically made the decision without asking McKenzie. Rationally (hopefully) she knew that she was making the right decision with the move; constantly house-hopping wasn't a conducive environment for a little girl to grow up, and their father's condition made him dangerous to be around. She just wished that McKenzie had been a little older so that she could understand why they had to leave, because Kenzie hadn't really seen the full extent of her daddy's destructive behavior and had questioned why they were moving. She loved Aunt Karin and was happy that they would get to see her when Sydney explained where they would be, but didn't know why they had to move completely.

In the end, the only way that Sydney had been able to explain it was to say that they were going on a very, very long vacation and were going to stay with Karin. She also gave McKenzie the option of staying on Earth, but that she'd have to live with someone by herself. Sydney had hated using that sort of ultimatum card on her little sister, but it was also the harsh truth. Tucker's family could probably support McKenzie, but only her. And the whole reason that Sydney had looked off world was because she wanted to find some place that both Shepard girls could live together. There was a high chance they'd be split up in a foster system, so even though leaving Earth was a huge and jarring change, she'd much preferred it to losing her sister.

After that, McKenzie had settled down somewhat, trusting that her big sister knew what was best. It touched and scared Sydney that McKenzie believed in her so much, and she knew she would have to be careful in the future to make sure that trust was not misplaced.

So, she was basically terrified of how drastically her life would change in one week's time, but what was done was done, and she was going to run with it as best she could.

* * *

_A/N - Maybe a tad bit of a slow chapter, but it took me forever to write haha, I was strugglin'. Just in case any of you are getting antsy, I'm thinking 2 more chapters of 'prologue' stuff after this one, and then it will be on to the 'main' story. _


	13. More Than the Third Law

_This chapter starts off back in time when the Christmas Fiasco happened and then proceeds chronologically forward to the present, just so there's no confusion._

Chapter 13 - More Than the Third Law

When the cold of winter rolls around, the main concern for everyone is staying warm. If it's lucky (or unlucky) enough to snow, a lot of individuals will take advantage to play in it. For a lot of people, winter is also the signal that it will be Christmas soon. That's when decorations are brought out, presents are bought and Santa comes around. People also break out the eggnog. The stuff is basically everywhere. In homes, at parties and in the workplace when an office is shutting down for Christmas eve.

On the slowly dwindling times that Jake Shepard would go to work, he could always count on it to be a place that he had to focus at. It's not that he didn't like his job, he enjoyed it very much, but it got harder and harder to wake up for and make it to each week. He'd been proud of himself that he'd made it almost four times the week before Christmas. Today was Christmas eve and the office was going to close early to allow everyone to go home and enjoy the night with their families and friends.

Almost an hour before closing time, everyone got a message on their terminals in their offices that said to head to the break room for a small, office-wide Christmas party. A couple of people groaned, wishing they could just cut out and go home early, but most employees were happy and appreciative that their boss would set something up for them.

Jake made his way to the break room, a large space with cheap linoleum tables and plastic chairs, a few food and drink dispenser machines and now, bedecked with holiday decorations and massive amounts of food laid out. His boss was already in there and he greeted everyone with a hearty "Happy Holidays" and motioned for everyone to fill in.

"I'm proud of how hard you guys all work, and it's thanks to that hard work that this year went extremely well. I hope you all know that this company really appreciates dedication and on behalf of my superiors I would like to say good job. So, I propose a toast, and then you all can dig in and enjoy the food." He motioned to the table that had many pre-prepared cups of eggnog sitting on it. Once everyone held a cup in their hands, the boss raised his in the air and said, "To a great year and to great employees."

Everyone agreed and cheered and then swallowed a copious amount of the stuff. After completing the toast, it was evident on a lot of people's faces that some prankster had slipped into the break room early and spiked the eggnog even more so than it had been already. Most people didn't really care, just recognizing there was more alcohol in it and deciding not to drink as much.

Jake, on the other hand, couldn't believe his luck. He'd been almost dreading going home that evening and knew that he'd probably stop by a bar after work anyway to prepare himself to enter his house. Now, he hoped he could dull his brain enough to allow him to stumble in and ignore all the decorations in the house and all the presents under the tree and escape to his room.

This would be his first Christmas without Hannah, and even though the day was tomorrow, he was already feeling crushed by the emptiness and loneliness of the holiday. Every day without her was... awful, to say the least, but anytime holidays rolled around, the feeling ramped up exponentially. Thanksgiving had been a nightmare, and he desperately wished to avoid feeling how he had then; heartbroken and alone.

He had hoped that being around Sydney and McKenzie would help him cope with Hannah's death, but they almost made it worse. It almost seemed like his wife had been divided up and was now reflected back at him through her daughters. McKenzie had her exact color hair and her big grin, while Sydney had her glorious eyes and her loving personality.

And he knew he wasn't making it easier for either of them, especially Sydney. She probably didn't realize it, but he _did_ in fact recognize how hard she was working to keep them all fed and taken care of. It was that reason that almost made him feel two times as worse inside. Seeing how much she struggled to deal with the situation and how well she took care of them made him want to quit drinking and help her. The awful feeling came because as much as he wanted that, he wanted the alcohol and the escape more.

So he took quite the advantage of the excessively spiked eggnog and tried to fortify himself against his wife's ghost that would haunt him as soon as he entered the house.

-.-.-.-.-

Ever since Christmas, Sydney had given him the cold shoulder (even more than she had been doing already) and whenever McKenzie looked at him her gaze was filled with almost a little bit of fear. He couldn't quite seem to remember what had happened, but he gathered that he had done something incredibly stupid that had made them both upset. He wished he could remember so that he could maybe fix things, but the memory continued to be elusive and fluttered just out of reach.

So, when he'd woken up one morning and had gone to the kitchen to get something to eat, Sydney had caught him at a rare moment when he _didn't_ have a hangover. Her voice had almost startled him when she spoke because she hadn't talked to him beyond curt, short sentences whenever they crossed paths.

"Hey, Dad. I'm having McKenzie's birthday party tomorrow and I wanted to know if you wanted to help with it."

His heart almost stopped at her words. _No... there is no way it's her birthday already... _With trepidation he asked her, "Wait. It's her birthday already? I thought it wasn't for a few more weeks."

He could tell that she looked at him with sadness and pity, and probably slight anger, when she spoke. "No, Dad. It's tomorrow, and I already have most of the things laid out, I just might need some help setting stuff up."

_Damn it..._ He sighed heavily and covered his eyes with his hand, trying to rub away his stupidity and forgetfulness. _This is all the damn alcohol's fault_. He quickly thought about when he'd get off work and realized that he could probably help her afterwards. "Sorry I forgot, hun. I'd love to help set up for it. I have some stuff I have to do for work today, but I'll come back and help you tonight or tomorrow morning, how's that sound?"

"Re-really? You'll help?"

That eagerness and pleading look in her eyes broke his heart because he knew he was the one that put it there. Without even thinking about it he pulled his daughter into a hug. "I'm sorry, honey, for how I've been acting. I know it's been hard on you and your sister and I'm really sorry." He felt Sydney wrap her arms around him and he realized how long it had been since they'd hugged. The realization made his throat constrict with sadness and he choked out, "It's... been hard... since your mom..."

"I know, Dad, I know," Sydney mumbled into his shoulder, and he could hear that her voice was thick with tears, "We've all been having a hard time with it."

Her tone knocked deep on his soul and seemed to be asking for her dad back. It terrified him that he gotten the way he had, but he was also equally terrified of stopping because he had no idea how he'd deal with things without the alcohol. But, almost as if his body bypassed his brain, he heard himself say, "Yeah, but that doesn't excuse how I've acted. I'm going to try and get better, to be here more for you and Kenzie."

Sydney just nodded, a hopeful smile stretching out across her face at his words. _Oh shit... Why did I make such a convicting promise? She'll hate more if I break it. I can't stop cold turkey, I should have explained that! I'm screwed..._

He tried to smile at her and the action felt somewhat stiff and forced, but he needed to get out of the house before he broke her heart again. "I'll be back after work, okay? Then I'll help you with Kenzie's party."

-.-.-.-.-

After McKenzie's party, any hope that he had of rebuilding his relationship with his eldest was thoroughly shot to hell.

He'd told some buddies at work that it was his little girl's birthday and they all insisted that they take him out to drink. He had no idea how they could make the leap from a six year old's birthday and justify it as a way to go drinking, but he hadn't really resisted. _I'll just have a drink to McKenzie's birthday and then I'll head home and help set up_, he'd weakly tried to convince himself. He hadn't lied to Sydney that he'd wanted to get better, it was just extremely hard to not answer the siren call that booze ensnared him with.

Next thing he knew it was mid-afternoon and he stumbled into his house and blackout. He'd been awoken to blazing anger and the wrath of his daughter. The anger in her eyes had terrified him but also made him realized that he'd probably destroyed any respect she had for him. When it dawned on him that his own daughter thought he was probably worthless, he lost what little hope he had left.

Why try when everything he did hurt those around him? Why try when all he was good for was breaking families and destroying hope? It had been a steady decline from there. Not that he hadn't been screwing up his life before, but now he didn't care one way or the other. He'd maybe made it into work once or twice a week, if that. It wasn't long before he was fired and while it should have evoked great sadness and shame within him, all he could feel was apathy.

He halfheartedly tried to regulate his drinking, but he knew that he was failing miserably with it. The only reason he ate was because some small part of his daughter took pity on such a wretched creature.

One thing was able to break through his clouded mind and it hurt greatly. He knew that Sydney avoided the house, or rather him. He only saw her maybe once a week, and it was only ever if McKenzie was in the house too. He wondered at that. Where was McKenzie staying? But he knew that Sydney would never let anything happen to her sister and so she was probably just keeping the little girl away from him. _That_ hurt too; knowing his own daughter thought he was a danger to his family.

It went on like that for months, and his body just became more and more taken over by sadness, guilt and alcohol.

One day, he reached the point where he couldn't even recall why he'd started drinking in the first place. He was sitting in a bar and he stared at his drink wondering why he was drinking it. _Hannah hates alcohol... Actually, I don't like it much either._ The whole situation confused him so he decided to go home and see if he could get something to eat because he had a terrible stomach ache from the alcohol.

He got home and rummaged around the fridge for some food, noticing that there was some leftovers. He smiled to himself and thought, _Hmm, Hannah's food is so great it even tastes good days after._ He ate quickly and felt much better after he got some food in his stomach. He leaned against the counter to finish up his water, flicking through things on his omni, when he saw someone come down the stairs. He turned and saw it was Hannah and wondered why she had been upstairs. _Maybe she was helping Sydney with something_. "Hey, honey. How are you?" he asked her with a smile.

She appeared frozen in place and all he heard her say was, "Wha..?"

He was slightly concerned that she didn't really say anything and he quickly went over to her and wrapped her in a hug. He was further confused as he felt her body stiffen under his. He kissed her forehead to try and ease her tension, but frowned a bit when she still stood like she was locked in place. "Are you alright? You look pale," he said with concern. _Is she sick?_

"Oh, I'm just hungry," she said. Her voice sounded slightly breathless and so he figured that she must have been pretty hungry.

He was relieved that that was all it was and he smiled at her again. He headed to the fridge before she could move to get any food herself. Hannah always took such great care of him, he wanted to be able to take care of her for once. "Oh, I'll make you something to eat." He looked inside to see what there was after he had already eaten and listed off some things that remained. "I could make some pizza, or spaghetti. Or it looks like we have some left over grilled chicken," he told her.

There was a bit of a long pause before she spoke, but then she quietly said, "Grilled chicken sounds good."

"Alrighty," he said cheerfully, pulling the container that the chicken was in out of the fridge and went to heat it up. He stuck it on a plate first and then turned to look at her as it was heating. She still hadn't moved from her spot on the stairs and she looked almost like she was going to be sick. "Are you sure you're okay, honey? You seem a little off." _Maybe she's more than just hungry and she doesn't want me to worry._

"Uh.. I'm fine? Hungry..." he noticed the hesitancy in her voice, but she finally moved and went to sit down at the kitchen table. He was glad that she told him it was just hunger, but confused him a little bit again when she asked if _he_ was alright and if he felt okay.

He looked at her somewhat humouredly and said, "Of course I feel okay. Why do you ask?"

"You... I mean..." she paused momentarily. "You've been... sick. Don't you remember?"

_What does she mean? I don't feel sick_, he thought for a moment. _Maybe it has something to do with why I was drinking today, but that just seemed such a random thing to do._ "I don't remember being sick. But even if I was, I feel fine now. Great, really," he finished with a smile. He heard her say something but didn't catch the words. He was going to ask her to repeat herself but then the food was ready so he got up to go get it for her.

He set down the plate in front of her and got her some utensils and something to drink. When she made no move to eat he said, "Well, aren't you going to eat? You look like you need it." She made a noise of agreement and started eating. Satisfied that she was getting some food in her, he went to look through his omni.

After a few minutes she cleared her throat and he saw that she was done. "Oh, you're done. Here, let me clean up for you." He leaned over and picked up her plate, placing her fork and knife on it, and took them to the washer.

"Thanks," she said. She was quiet for a few moments and he loaded the washer but then she cleared her throat again and what she said next really confused him. "Dad."

"'Dad'? Why'd you call me that, honey?" he asked her while looking at her strangely. _Why would she say something like that?_

He watched her jaw hang open and words spill out of her mouth. "Be-because you're my dad... Duh."

_What? Maybe she's joking around because I just made her food... _He walked over to her with a look of great concern on his face and knelt down by her chair. He raised a hand to her forehead to see if she felt warm. "You really don't look very good. I'll make you some tea and you can lay on the couch." He then trailed his hand down her soft face and cupped her cheek. He leaned in and placed a soft kiss on her lips, hoping to make her feel better and to let her know that he'd help her in any way he could. He was in no way prepared for her reaction, though.

Hannah exploded out of her chair and knocked it to the floor. She brutally shoved him backwards and he listened in disbelief as she yelled at him. "WHAT THE FUCK?!" she screamed. He saw that her eyes were somewhat wild and she was breathing hard. "DAD! What the HELL is WRONG with you?!"

_'Dad'? Why in the world does she keep calling me that? I know she says it when she's talking to Sydney or McKenzie and she's referring to me, but neither of them are here. _He looked at her with confusion and couldn't understand her outburst. "Woah, calm down. What's the matter, Hannah?"

"H-Hannah?" she seemed to choke out, but he couldn't understand why it was so hard to say her own name. "W-Why did you call me that?"

He slowly stood up, keeping his eyes on hers at all times _What is going on?_. "Because that's your name, sweetheart. Hannah." He reached out a hand toward her to try and calm her down but she burst into action and smacked his hand away from her, confusing him even more.

"Dad..." she spoke slowly and quietly, and her tone was really curious and bizarre. "Dad, Mom is gone. I'm Sydney, your daughter."

"Sydney?" Jake snorted. "You'd think I'd know my own daughter. Hannah, why are you acting so strangely? I think you're the one who's sick," he said, and took a step toward her.

She then threw the chair she had knocked over at him yelling, "You stay the fucking HELL away from me!" Tears started to roll down her face as she backed away further and out of the kitchen. "Oh God, oh God. Shit, stay away from me," she sobbed.

He was completely bewildered by how she was acting, but when she threw the chair at him it was like his brain snapped and he fell to the floor with one name on his lips. "Han-"

He was cut off by not only her scream of utter fear, but also the pain coursing through his body as reality fell back onto him with crushing and deadly weight, alerting him quite painfully to what had happened and what he had just done. _Shit, shit, shit what did I DO?!_

-.-.-.-.-

It was a good thing Sydney had left after that because he would have never given her any peace if she had come back around. All he wanted to do was throw himself at her feet and apologize to her for what he had done. But when he realized that she had left for good, his already pitiful state deteriorated to the point where he ended up in the hospital quite often for alcohol poisoning.

He always got out the day after and paid off the bills, but he know something was going to have to give; either his alcohol intake would have to stop or the money would run out. He contemplated this in the best way that he could given his current condition, but before he could come to a decision, one was made for him.

He wasn't quite sure how many weeks or months had gone by after Sydney left the house, and he had no real way of keeping track since his nights and days blurred together. His hallucinations didn't really stop, but now he knew to never even acknowledge them. He'd see people flickering in and out of his peripheral vision as he haunted the house, and it made him all the more lonely knowing that his home was actually empty.

He'd awoken one day and stumbled into the kitchen trying to see if there'd be any leftover take out from whenever the last time was that he had bothered to call for food. When he shuffled into the kitchen, however, he saw a datapad on the table that he was almost certain hadn't been there before. While it was sometimes hard for him to remember where he put things, he never remembered leaving a datapad in the kitchen.

He went over to it and picked up, and when he read the contents, he couldn't even bring himself to be angry with what she had done. He knew he deserved it and that she was doing the right thing. But, his already tattered and shredded heart contracted painfully once more because he knew everything that she had done had been a reaction to his failures and short comings. _I fucked up..._

-.-.-.-.-

_Dad,_

_I'm sorry I'm not telling you this in person, but because of how you've acted, it's come to this. By the time you read this, me and McKenzie will be gone. We can't stay, Dad, not with how you are right now._

_When Mom was dying, she made me promise something. I promised her that I'd take care of this family, Dad. I promised her that I would do my best to get us through her death and to try and live our lives. It's been a year and I've tried so hard to keep that promise. I've allowed myself to suffer to desperately try and keep this family intact and functional. But Dad, because of what you've let yourself become, I can't keep that promise. If I stay here, all three of us will suffer for it. But if I leave and protect McKenzie, at least two of us will be safe. If the only way to keep my promise to Mom is to get away from you, then I will do so. For Mom's sake, for McKenzie's sake, and for my own sake. I thought I could carry your burden, Dad, and I tried. But I can't. And as much as that makes me feel like I've failed Mom and this family, I'm going to try and salvage what's left of it and start over somewhere else. _

_I'm sorry, Dad, but I've made my decision, and I'm choosing happiness and acceptance and safety for me and my little sister. I didn't call the cops or social services because I still love you and I know that deep down you would never, ever have gotten this way if you knew what you were doing. But I also love you enough to want you to get better, so I called a rehab clinic and they'll be coming to talk to you in a few days. _

_I hope that while we're gone you can get the help you need and get better. But until then, I'm taking McKenzie as far from you as I can and I'm going to watch over her and help her grow up in the best way that I can. For everyone's safety I'm not telling you where we are going until I know that you are sober and cured. Don't try and ask Tucker or Julia, they won't tell you because they love me enough to let me go and do what's right._

_And Dad, we'll stay away as long as it takes. I'm not risking my sister's life for you. Where we're going, we can live there for the rest of our lives and be safe and happy, so don't think you can wait us out. I love you so much and watching what you've done to yourself this last year kills me, Dad, it really does. I tried so hard to ignore your problem and keep our fractured family together, but I realized I was living in a fantasy and that our family was broken a long time ago. Right now, it can't be fixed, but it's up to _you_ to determine whether or not it will be completely irreparable. _

_Don't worry about McKenzie or me, we really will be safe. I love you and hope that we can eventually see each other again. Kenzie already lost her mother, don't make her lose her father as well._

_Love,_

_Sydney _

* * *

_A/N - We saw Sydney's side of events, so I wanted to show a little bit of Jake's too. And the chapter title refers to Newton's Third Law: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. 'More than the third law' explains that Jake's actions caused more than just an equal and opposite reaction; his stupidity pushed his family away, but way more than he would have ever thought._


	14. Bittersweet Goodbye

Chapter 14 - Bittersweet Goodbye

It was a strange sensation that settled over Sydney as she packed up her belongings from the room that she had been sleeping in during her stay at Tucker's house. Strange because while she should have be struggling to keep her composure, she was in actuality extremely calm and almost pensive. The idea of leaving behind everything she had ever known should have been causing her to break down and cry on the floor, but it wasn't. Maybe she had moved beyond such emotions the night that her father had... done what he had done; maybe all the tears and rage and fear had been shed when she had basically bared her soul to Tucker. It's not that she had felt empty since then, far from it, but maybe she had been able to accept the inevitable and instead of stressing about it further, her body was coping and agreeing with her brain for once and she was able to look at the situation rationally.

Sure, she'd miss Earth and her friends, there was no denying that, but she was ready to move on and start over. The past year had drained her emotionally, spiritually and physically in a way that she'd never felt before and she was ready to shrug it off to try and be happy again. It was unfortunate that the only way for her to be happy was basically wiping out who she had been before and starting over completely and utterly new on some far off and foreign planet, but beggars couldn't be choosers.

Packing was taking longer than she had originally planned because it seemed like every little thing that she started to box up would hold some memory that her brain would replay as she stood there holding each object. She wasn't about to die, but in a way it did seem like her life was flashing before her eyes.

When she had packed up her skyball body pads, they had brought back the memories of the first skyball game that she had ever played. She'd been nervous out of her mind and had almost thrown up right there on the field. She chuckled as she remembered how silly she had been because she'd done awesome that game and she knew that that had been when her love of skyball had been solidified. And while it was a tad small, she still had the jersey from her first team.

As she cleaned out the closet, she had found an old shirt that she had borrowed from Julia when the crazy girl had dragged her to her first party. Oddly enough, she'd felt almost the same way at the party as she had felt the day she stood on the skyball field for the first time; nervous enough to vomit. It hadn't been the most glamorous of venues or one of the most classy parties, but Julia always argued that she'd only been in 8th grade and had only had so many options open to her. Sydney laughed at the memory and shook her head because she remembered that had been the first time she had ever gotten drunk. It had also been the last time she'd ever borrowed any of Julia's clothing too, because the salacious looks she had gotten from guys while wearing it had severely creeped her out. Obviously Julia had given her the most low cut and revealing thing she had owned. To this day Sydney was pretty sure her friend had been playing a joke on her even while she'd been trying to make her more 'party-wise'.

So it had gone on and on like that, small things bringing back random memories and events from her life. Some were a bit sad, like those that reminded her of mother, but most brought back happy or funny times that her and her friends had shared doing ridiculous things. For the most part it was nice, reviewing her life in a series of snapshots and recognizing the things that had shaped her and made her who she was. Eventually though, her things were all packed and she looked at the barren room with a twinge of sadness. It was quite symbolic of how she was leaving things on Earth as well. All traces of her life were being erased as she gathered things up and packed them away.

_Pahh, stop being mopey and tragic_, she chastised herself, shaking away the metaphorical thoughts and focused on closing up the last of the boxes. While it was true that her room was now empty, it wasn't like she was vanishing completely from Earth. Tucker and Julia would still be there, and regardless of where she lived, they would remain as some of the most important people in her life. All of her other friends would remember her as well, even if she did lose touch with them. No, she wasn't vanishing, she was just starting anew somewhere else, but still leaving behind traces and memories of who she was on Earth.

_Oh my gosh, when did I become so sappy? Julia would laugh at me and call me an idiot._ She smiled and left the room, making her way downstairs so she could make one last sweep of the house to see if she missed anything. She skimmed through the living room and kitchen, only finding a couple of datapads that she had left lying around. Once she cleared the downstairs and was sure she hadn't left anything else, she dumped the datapads in a random box in her room and went to check and see if anything else was in Tucker's room.

During her stay with the Rolden's she had hung out in his room a lot, but rarely - actually not once if Julia hadn't been there also - had she slept in there with him. Sure, they'd been dating over a year, but after what had happened at the party, she tried to avoid putting herself in a setting where something _might_ happen. It also had nothing to do with trust issues, because it was obvious that getting caught up in the moment wasn't something that would cause them to do something they weren't ready for. Sydney was beyond thankful that Tucker had kept a level head the night she had... thrown herself at him, because she'd had every intention of going through with it. He had probably salvaged everything about their relationship with is self-control.

So, no, it wasn't the trust issues. Sydney just wasn't ready to put herself back in a situation like that. The whole idea of sex was now somewhat tied up with her dad's behavior. It's not that she didn't wish Tucker would be her first time, it was just that her first time had almost been in reaction to such a negative event and it made her slightly skittish with the idea of losing her virginity. Luckily, the idea of sex and her father's hallucination weren't nearly as tied up and intense as the connection between her mom dying and her first name, so she hoped she'd get over it quicker. And honestly, if she hadn't been moving away, she was pretty sure that she would have gotten to a point where she would have been able to sleep with Tucker. After the party, everyone already assumed that they had actually 'done the deed', and if a few more months had passed by, she was sure they wouldn't have been lying about it because she knew she would have felt comfortable enough to try again.

_Just another thing Dad has ruined..._ she thought somewhat bitterly. Who else would she meet or how long would it take for her to feel close enough to another person to get to the point that she was at with Tucker? Her history with Tucker was ancient (by her teenage standards), and she would be ridiculously hard pressed to find anyone else like him. But, that didn't mean she was going to force something with Tucker that wasn't there just because she was afraid she wouldn't 'get some'.

_Oh, woe is me..._ she sarcastically quipped. _This move is seriously addling my brain..._ Snorting, she checked around Tucker's room to make sure that nothing else was left behind. She grabbed a couple of his hoodies and t-shirts to take with her, but other than that she didn't find anything else of hers in his room. She returned to her boxes and packed up the clothes she had 'stolen' from his room (she knew he'd have given them to her if she'd asked, so it wasn't _really_ stealing).

A little bit of the finality of her situation weighed on her as she sealed up the final box and realized that she didn't have anything else to do except load things up. Tucker and Julia had been outside loading up the cargo carrier with some of her other belongings and all of McKenzie's stuff, so she sent them a quick message on her omni-tool telling them that she was ready to have the rest of her stuff brought down and loaded up as well.

There was one thing, however, besides McKenzie, that she'd be taking with her when she left and that was Sadie. Her dog was now irrevocably part of her and McKenzie's lives and she wouldn't leave her on Earth for anything. Unfortunately, her kennel was huge and it wouldn't fit in any of the skycars they were taking to the space port, so Sadie had to ride in the cargo carrier with the rest of her stuff. The ride was only a few hours long and they wouldn't be breaking the atmosphere so she knew Sadie would be fine, even if she did feel a little bad leaving her dog alone in the dark.

She led the giant canine into her kennel and knelt down to caress and pet her one more time before the transport left. She told her what a good dog she was and that she'd see her soon. When she turned around Tucker and Julia were giving her funny looks for talking to her dog, but she just stuck her tongue out at them.

They loaded up the last of the boxes and once they shut and locked the door on the transport, they watched it head off towards the space port. Sydney gulped nervously because in a few short hours they'd be at the port, and she knew that the time was drawing near for her life to change forever.

-.-.-.-.-

The skycar was silent as the trio flew towards the space port, not in an awkward or uncomfortable way, but in a companionable way as they soaked up each other's presence (well, four if one counted McKenzie, but the little girl was completely passed out and not at all aware of her sister or her friends). Long ago they had become content to just sit and be when they were around each other, they had no need to struggle to fill silences since they were quite comfortable being together. So Sydney used the silence to contemplate all that was happening and wondering about what the future would hold.

Sydney had said goodbye to Julia's parents prior to their flight to the space port, and Tucker's parents were coming to the port with them so she would say her farewells to them there. A few days before she had visited all her other friends and said her last parting words to them as well. Carla, being somewhat emotional as a general rule, had cried quite a bit. Skyler had been a bit subdued, but had sent her a bunch of music playlists for her trip to help her pass the time and remind her of him. A lot of her friends gave her a few send-off gifts, and she was genuinely touched by the depth of their thoughtfulness and knew she'd really miss all their crazy antics.

She'd also taken McKenzie around to say goodbye to all of her little friends, and the reason that McKenzie was so deeply asleep currently was from all the tears and emotions she had gone through saying goodbye to everyone. Sydney had also taken the opportunity as a way to thank the parents of her sister's friends for all the times that they had watched over McKenzie. Sydney's heart clenched a little and she couldn't help but feel somewhat guilty for all the sadness her sister was being put through, but their course was set and there was no turning away.

Sydney stroked her sister's hair since the little girl was curled up on her side and she sighed heavily. She knew she was uprooting McKenzie's life, but she was banking on the versatility of the child mind to help get her sister through the chaos of the move and over the pain of leaving her friends. She was also pretty sure that once they got settled with Aunt Karin, McKenzie would be the first one to adjust and take her new surroundings in stride. Little kids, it seemed, always had a much easier time making new friends and taking advantage of new situations. Small children didn't have the same reservations or prejudices that older kids seemed to have, and making friends basically depended on whether or not they could have fun together. They didn't worry about clothes, or looks or smarts all that much, so the barriers they had to overcome in order to get a long weren't very high.

Sydney looked out the window at the city racing by below her and she knew that making new friends was one of her biggest fears. She was extremely comfortable with her current group and it almost terrified her that she'd be basically alone with no one that she knew when she moved. She'd never had to really be the 'new kid' anywhere since she'd lived in the same place her whole life and had grown up with the same people as well. Now, though, she'd be starting from scratch and worried that making friends would be difficult.

As she looked out the window, she realized that they were getting closer and closer to the space port because the buildings got bigger and bigger and the traffic in the air continued to increase. She'd never been to this particular port before because her family had never needed to take a shuttle any farther than somewhere else on Earth. They'd always used one of the smaller ports closer to their city whenever they needed to travel anywhere.

When humanity had been thrust into the galactic community, it had been somewhat premature because as a whole, the human race hadn't really been unified in and of itself as one working whole. But that had been exactly what was needed when they'd been introduced to the world outside of their solar system. All the other species were somewhat united and acting as singular wholes, and that was basically what had been expected of humanity as well.

So, to appear as if they had had a unified front, the Systems Alliance had been hastily created, and a lot of already existing and deep-set conflicts between nations had been basically thrust aside and ignored. It had been an extremely risky move that could have enraged many countries and backfired easily, but thankfully the fear of the new 'aliens' and the vast amounts of unknowns that came along with the whole situation had put any major outstanding issues on the back burner.

Everything had worked out, though, and the Systems Alliance functioned extremely well, all things considered. Humanity still had its share of corrupt politicians and greedy higher-ups, but it was still a form of government that worked outstandingly considering how it came into being. But while the governments of Earth may have been somewhat squashed together and forced to cooperate, the countries had still maintained their separateness and some of their autonomy.

While many of the homeworlds of other species had major regions with relatively few capitol cities, Earthen countries and capitols remained unchanged for the most part. Some of the continents were lumped together if they were ever referred to when being spoken about to those outside of humanity, commonly blending Europe and Asia into Eurasia, North and South America being simply the America's, but there was still too much variation in the sub-species of the human race to squash countries together.

So, in each major region there could be thousands upon thousands of space ports. Many of those were small ones that only travelled within their respective continent. The larger the ports got, the more distant destinations were available. Within the United States specifically, every state had at least twenty space ports that had shuttles that could travel anywhere on Earth. But there were only about four or five per state that had ships big enough to leave the planet completely. It was a port such as that that they were travelling to.

When they rounded a particularly thick cluster of tall buildings, the space port was suddenly sprawling beneath them and the sheer size of it made Sydney's eyes widen. She gently shook McKenzie awake because she knew her sister would enjoy the view immensely. "Kenzie-bear look! That's where we're going."

"Wow! It's so big!" she exclaimed once she was awake enough to realize what was going on, and she began trying to unbuckle her seat restrains so she could peer out the window better. Sydney chuckled and quickly undid the belts and shifted her sister to her other side so she would have a better view. She strapped her back in but the girl hardly noticed, her face pressed against the window of the skycar as she marveled at the sight below her.

Julia laughed at the wonder on her face and leaned back to ruffle the blonde hair. "It's pretty cool, isn't it?"

McKenzie nodded vigorously, "Uh-huh!"

The space port really was huge, so Sydney pulled up their docking information so Tucker knew where the ship was and where to land. "Hey, Tuck, the dock number is E-67," she said, looking out over the shipyard to try and help locate where the ship was. She glanced back at the map on her omni and saw that they were actually almost there anyway. "It's just up ahead, bank a bit to the left and you should see it out of the left window at about 2 o'clock."

Tucker glanced around for a few moments until he spotted the large tower that had the dock numbers painted on it in large letters. "I see it," he remarked, and angled the skycar towards the tower. Tucker had gotten his skycar operating license a few weeks prior and had insisted that he be the one to fly to their destination.

While the ride to the space port had seemed to drag on for Sydney, once they'd seen the port, it was like time had sped back up. All of a sudden they were already standing on the vast expanse of concrete of their dock and multitudes of ships in every shape, size and color were towering around them. They spotted the cargo box that held all of her stuff and they made their way towards it to finalize everything and get it loaded onto the ship that would be taking her and her sister off world.

She opened the door of the cargo box quickly to check on Sadie and see if she was alright. Her dog was a bit keyed up and panting slightly, but seemed none the worse for wear. She had arranged with the transport ship to allow Sadie's kennel to be transferred out of the cargo box and be left out in the open in the cargo bay of the ship, just so the dog would get some 'fresh air' (fresh being a relative term on a spaceship seeing as how all the air was recycled to begin with).

Disappointingly enough, their ship didn't have its own cool name, only going by _UT-04572_ since it was just one of thousands of basic transports owned by the company _United Transports._ Naming that many ships individually would have been beyond idiotic, but it also left her without the ability to tell a cool story. _Oh yeah, telling people that my first grand adventure into space was aboard the illustrious _UT-04572_ is a real conversation starter._

However she didn't get long to dwell on the less than exotic name of the ship because before she knew it, she was standing in front of the transport and all of her belongings were packed into the cargo hold. Suddenly there wasn't anything else to do except say her goodbyes and board the ship.

And there it was; all the emotion and fear that had seemed to be oddly missing as she packed up her room was upon her. It was rushing back with a vengeance as she stood on the tarmac of the massive space port about to leave Earth for the first time. Her breath caught in her throat for a moment and terror threatened to overcome every cell in her body. Julia saw the almost panic in her friend's eyes and in a rare display of completely true emotion with no sarcasm behind the move, engulfed her best friend in a gripping bear hug.

Julia almost never cried after she had her falling out with her parents, usually masking any sadness with her biting wit and crass humor. But here, with the reality of her lifelong friend leaving, she didn't bother keeping the tears from falling or the emotion out of her voice. "I'm going to miss you, sheep-head," Julia whispered hoarsely, still clinging to Sydney. "You never gave up on me. Even when I was being stupid and doing idiotic things, you were always there."

Sydney felt her own throat close up, thick with unshed tears at her friend's words. It wasn't like Julia hadn't shown her gratitude before, she had just never done so with tears. She squeezed her smaller friend once and pulled away, looking her full in the face and allowing a genuine smile to cross her face. "I never had to 'put up with you', silly. You never, ever felt like a burden that I had to uphold. Me and Tuck would have lived our lives like cloistered old people if you hadn't of brought your crazy charm into our group," she laughed, flicking her friend on the nose playfully and glancing over as Tucker joined their hug.

He wrapped his long arms around both of them and nodded in agreement. "You may have spazzed out on us, but I don't think we would have had it any other way," he told her.

Julia laughed and pulled away from their group hug, quickly wiping away the tear stains on her face. She didn't mind showing the emotion, but she didn't need it lingering either. She took a deep breath and looked at Sydney again and smiled at her warmly. "It sucks that you're leaving, but don't ever think that you can't call for anything. Maybe we can't rush through space to help you, but we'll always be here for you, sheep-head, so don't you forget it." She then looked between Sydney and Tucker and rolled her eyes at them. "I'll give you two lovebirds some privacy so you can be all mushy. Just remember that we _are_ in public, so you can't get down and dir-"

"Julia!" Sydney huffed in embarrassment, cutting her crass friend off before she could finish.

Julia just laughed and walked backwards away from them. "Yeah, yeah, don't get your panties in a twist, I'm going," she snickered.

Sydney glared at her friend but there was no real heat behind the look. It warmed her heart that even at such an emotionally charged time, her friend still knew how to lighten her mood and joke around. She turned to Tucker with her blush cooling from her face and for a few moments they just held each other's hands loosely and looked at the other, trying to remember every detail of their remaining time together.

Tucker silently brought his hand up to her face and gently caressed her cheek and jaw, fingers feather light and soft. She closed her eyes and leaned into his palm, wishing that the moment would last forever. When they heard the whirring of the ship's engines building up, they knew that the time had come and that they couldn't delay the inevitable any longer.

Almost gruffly he pulled her smaller frame into his larger one and encircled her body with his arms, gripping her in a fierce hug and burying his face in her dark hair. She in turn pressed her head against his chest and listened to his heartbeat, reveling one last time in his embrace. "Tucker..." She couldn't finish as tears threatened once more.

He held her just a little tighter and kissed the top of her head. "I know, babe. But hey, look at me." Tucker tilted her head up so that their eyes met and the love that she saw in them chased away some of her fear. "I love you," he said simply and firmly, "and like Julia said, no matter what, don't forget that. I will always answer your calls and support you when you get lonely."

He pulled away and cradled her face between both of his hands. He paused for a moment and Sydney saw slight hesitation before he spoke his next words. He took a deep breath and said, "I love you, Sydney," he felt bad when he saw her eyes flicker slightly, but he needed to say her name again, "and don't ever forget it. I'll always be there for you." He leaned in and kissed her softly but fiercely, trying to pour all of his emotion into their final brush of lips and convey one last time how much she meant to him.

It wasn't a long kiss, but it burned through both of them and a few tears leaked down Sydney's face at the finality behind it. When the announcement ripped through the air that passengers could start boarding the ship, they broke apart with great reluctance and sad sighs. Julia trotted back over with McKenzie and Tucker's parents in tow and took the younger Shepard to the side as Sydney said her goodbyes to the Rolden's. Tucker and Julia knelt down and gave McKenzie their goodbyes and big hugs, telling the little girl she could talk to them whenever she wanted.

Julia poked the little girl in the side, tickling her a little bit, and said, "If you see an elcor you better call me and tell me!"

McKenzie had been trying really hard not to cry and to be a big girl, but genuine giggles escaped at the ticklish prod and Julia's words. "Okay!" she nodded enthusiastically, "I bet it'll be the biggest one ever!"

Julia and Tucker laughed at the 6 year old and gave her a few last hugs and kisses. Sydney finished up her goodbyes with the adults and came over to grab her sister's hand to make their way into the ship. She took a few steps forward but before she made it very far she turned back to the group. "I don't think I could ever thank any of you enough for what you have done for my family. This past year went crazy in every way possible, but you guys did everything to help me and McKenzie and I won't ever forget it. Thank you."

Tucker's mom had tears in her eyes and Julia looked close to crying again herself. They murmured out their final goodbyes and Sydney smiled at them one last time before turning back toward the ship. They stepped into the long line queuing on the ship's ramp and Sydney pulled up their ticketing information on her omni-tool. The line flowed swiftly and before she knew it they were seated and looking out of the port side window at the docking area below. Julia, Tucker and his parents were all still standing there and Sydney could guess that they'd be there until the ship took off and left the port. She wondered how she had ever been lucky enough to find such amazing people, but she was eternally grateful that she had.

Looking at Tucker, their final kiss flashed into her mind, as did his parting words. Her thoughts darkened somewhat as she remembered how her heart had clenched a bit when he uttered her name. She understood that he needed to say it in order to express how much he cared for her, but it shamed her that she still reacted negatively to it. She had tried and tried to get a handle on her stupid reactions, but it didn't matter who said it, pain flashed through her body every time. And at this point, a year later, she could be honest with herself and realized that it was a trained response.

Initially, the pain really had been because her mother's dying words had been her name and hearing her first name just brought her mom's death back to her. But it had evolved beyond that into a simple, trained response: Her brain recoiled from it just because that's what it had gotten used to. The whole thing had gotten away from her in the first few months and she now realized that it was probably her own fault that she reacted the way she did. She could have tried to clamp down on the reflex a bit more, but instead she had just ignored it because she hadn't wanted to face the pain.

_Well now you have to deal with your consequences._ She finally allowed herself to admit that her aversion to her first name was something she was just going to have to accept. _And maybe,_ she thought slowly, _maybe it's a good thing I can't stand hearing it anymore. The pain is part of what I want to leave behind._ This move was a way to start over new in a way that wouldn't be dictated by the pain the last year had wrought. If she was leaving behind everything she knew - her father, her house, her friends - why shouldn't she leave behind her name as well? _I already have everyone calling me Shepard_...

She felt the rumble under her feet as the ship's engines kicked into high gear and watched out the window as the vessel started to pull away from the space port. She stared at her... family - they were definitely her family now - as the ship continued to move farther and farther away from the ground until she lost them in the sea of people. And as the shipyard continued to shrink beneath her and the ship made its way closer to the atmosphere, she knew she had to let go of who she had been in order to move on.

The girl who had lost her mother, and basically her father as well, wouldn't be able to handle anything else. She had already suffered enough. The girl that was willing to face this new adventure and start her life over on a far off planet had to be strong.

Sydney wouldn't be able to move on, but Shepard could and would.

* * *

_A/N - Sorry this took so long to get out! Real life came a knockin' and I got an internship for the summer! So things will probably slow a bit since my amount of free time has dropped radically, but I will still update as much as I can :)._

_Well, this completes what I'm now calling the "prologue" of Growing Pains. Hope you've enjoyed the ride so far ;) And yes... that last line is beyond ridiculous, but it was waaaaaay too tempting to resist hahaha. I've kept this pretty realistic, give me my cheesy moments ;P_


	15. What's Done is Done

Chapter 15 - What's Done is Done

Karin Chakwas was doing something that she had rarely ever done in her entire life.

She was second guessing herself.

It had seemed like the smartest and most obvious choice at the time when her deceased best friend's daughter had called her. The picture of the heart wrenching situation that Sydney had painted about the year following Hannah's death had instantly compelled her healer's nature to kick into high gear. Karin considered the Shepard's to be her family, and when her 'niece' had asked if her and McKenzie could come live with her, she hadn't felt the slightest hesitation. She had heard the fear of rejection and desperate hoping in Sydney's voice as they had talked, and had seen the agony of uncertainty in the younger girl's eyes; eyes that reminded her so much of her best friend and had melted her heart. She still made sure that Sydney knew what she was committing her and her sister to, but once Karin heard what was going on, she hadn't even entertained the thought of turning Sydney down.

After the request had been made, they talked and planned things out during the weeks that had followed; setting up transportation and making sure all travel plans were taken care of. Karin had also started getting her own home ready in order to make the sisters feel at home when they arrived. Three rooms in her house could serve as bedrooms, and while one was her master bedroom, she fixed up the other two to make them fit for staying in. One had already been a guest bedroom, so she hadn't really needed to do much to it, but the other had been an extra room that she had used for storage, so she'd emptied everything out of there and went out to buy furniture in order to make it bedroom worthy.

It was while she'd been outfitting the room that doubt and uncertainty had descended on her and made her question if she was doing the right thing. Or rather, if she could handle the situation that was about to come crashing into her life. She knew housing the girls was the right thing, that she believed strongly, but what caused her feelings of hesitancy was whether or not she herself was ready for it.

She'd never had children of her own, and aside from the few times that she'd looked after other people's kids for short periods of time, she'd never had to _raise_ children. Sure, Sydney was already 16 and, for the most part, well established and wouldn't need actually raising, per se, but Karin would still be the legal guardian of a teen who had lost her mother a year prior and a father who had succumbed to alcoholism, and a six year old who probably understood very little about what was happening in her life. And while she knew that Sydney was an exceptional daughter and a magnificent sister, she was still basically a child who'd had way too much pressure thrust upon her and had been expected to bear things insanely outside of her maturity level. Karin was afraid that once Sydney got away from Earth and the responsibilities that had been expected of her there, that she might feel the need to run wild and expel all the bent up... everything that had plagued her for 12 months.

These thoughts had began barraging her as the days of the Shepard sisters arrival drew closer and closer and she desperately hoped that she'd be able to handle anything that came at her. Maybe she was blowing things slightly out of proportion and she'd be more than pleasantly surprised with the girls, but she figured prepping for the worst would fortify her better. There had only been a few other times that she could remember where she had felt as nervous or conflicted as she did just then, and she tried to remind herself that all those times had turned out great.

Her first major encounter with the emotions that came with second guessing oneself happened when she'd enlisted in the Alliance, which happened shortly after she'd finished med school. She had never even begun to consider joining the military when she'd first discovered that she wanted to be a doctor. She always figured she's work in a hospital somewhere or that she'd start her own private practice one day, but right as she was starting school, the First Contact War had broken out with the turians and suddenly, the path into the military blazed before her.

By the time she had graduated med school a few years later, the war had ended, but humanity was still on a huge unification kick in the face of such great change, and she felt that maybe she could serve the human race by saving lives in such an uncertain and perilous time of monumental change. She had been terrified at first, realizing that her first foray into the medical world might be treating bullet and shrapnel studded bodies, but she still saw it as an excellent way to use her newly acquired degree.

Her first stint on a military vessel had been aboard the _SSV Nightingale_, and even though the reason for her enlistment had actually ended before she had even graduated, she stuck with the Alliance and served faithfully for many satisfying years, patching up and mending soldiers of every rank in their never ceasing lives of service.

Connected with her first episode of doubt, in which she debated if joining the Alliance was the right course of action or not, her second bout of uncertainty had come when she was deciding whether or not to leave the Alliance. She had spent more than 20 years in the service and had made quite a name for herself. But the drawbacks of her time with the military had also became more and more evident as well as the years slipped by.

Whenever Karin had gotten any leave, she had always gone back to Earth and spent it with the Shepard family. She absolutely loved the family and she took advantage of any time that she got to spend with her best friend. Her relationship with Hannah had been something almost akin to Sydney's relationship with McKenzie. Karin had nearly been a decade Hannah's senior, but they had grown close despite the age difference. Originally, the older woman had served as Hannah's baby sitter when they had been very young, but even after Hannah had grown up enough to look after herself, they had stayed connected and grew beyond a baby sitter and her charge. They developed a very close relationship, and even when Karin had enlisted they'd stayed in touch.

Having very little family herself, Karin considered the Shepard's her adopted family and they welcomed her with open arms. The girls called her their aunt and she never got tired of hearing the term. The itch to retire had started when, in a revelation, she realized that as she lived in space and saw holos of the two girls as the years went by, she realized how fast they were growing up and how much of their lives she was missing.

A few years ago, as her stationed time on the _Orizaba_ came to an end, she decided to retire somewhat early in her career and move back to Earth, at least for a time, in order to reconnect with her 'family'. She spent many months filled with plenty of happy moments after she had retired to Earth, enjoying the company of the Shepard's and getting to spend quality time with her lifelong friend. However, being that she had retired while she still had plenty of energy and adventure still in her, she hadn't been able to stay inactive for long.

While it was true that she had wanted to remain active and work again, she had become quite accustomed to retired life and didn't think she'd wanted to enter into anything very demanding. She had briefly thought about joining back up with the Alliance, but before she had really even considered it much, a very interesting offer had been sent her way. When the invitation to become the head nurse at a prestigious, multi-species school on a planet in asari space had presented itself, the position seemed to fit perfectly with the kind of lifestyle she had been thinking about.

The planet on which the school presided was Sanves, an asari world located in the Athena Nebula, the same cluster as the asari homeworld of Thessia. The colony that had been established on Sanves was extremely old, first settled in 544 BCE, and had exploded in growth since. The entire planet was covered in dense, wild forests, it attracted a lot of tourists, game hunters and biologists, so the asari kept a close eye on who all immigrated to the planet. Presently, almost 1 billion inhabitants lived on Sanves, and since it's founding, the cities had spread quite liberally across the planet. The capital, and subsequently also the original colony, was Etheai, and the school at which Karin was to work at was located within.

The school was called the Normandy Academy, named after a famous ship captained by humanity's first SpecTRe. The captain had helped almost all of the galactic species in one way or another, and was considered a hero by many. Because of this, the school was dedicated in the captain's ship's name. She was as in an amazingly perfect situation for taking in the two girls because Sydney was right around the age to attend the school and it had a branch for younger children as well, so there hadn't been any added stress about where they were going to be educated.

All in all, Karin had been extremely intrigued by the proposition, and after only thinking about it for a few days, had jumped at the opportunity. It was something completely new and interesting that she had never done before, and she had looked forward to experiencing something so novel. She was also extremely excited to get to work with the other races and finally get to put use to her knowledge of alien physiology that had been wasted while she had been serving with the Alliance.

Unbeknownst to her or the Shepard's, Karin's move to Sanves preceded the diagnosis of Hannah's cancer by only a few months, and the newly appointed head nurse almost quit her new job and headed right back to Earth when the news broke. Obviously, Hannah had not even allowed her to fully suggest the move before she shut Karin down. Even when sick, the woman wouldn't allow herself to be an inconvenience to anyone.

Karin had planned to take a short vacation and come visit Earth when she knew that Hannah was probably in her last month, intending to be there and say goodbye to her friend that had become her sister. But Hannah's death had been abrupt, and before Karin had been able to reach Earth, her dearest friend had been gone.

Karin herself fell into the category of those who mourned Hannah with a tinge of regret because she hadn't been able tell her one last time how much she had meant to her. She was almost certain Hannah knew, how could she not, how much she cared, but it didn't change the fact that her heart hadn't gotten it's chance to express its love before Hannah's life faded away. She'd thankfully arrived in time for the funeral, and had stayed a few days afterwards to mourn with her adoptive family before she left to return to the Academy.

Thinking about Hannah, a slight portion of her apprehension about housing Sydney and McKenzie evaporated because she knew that had their roles been reversed, Hannah would have taken in her children in a heartbeat. The girls were her nieces, after all - her family - and she thought that it would be good for the three of them to live together and reconnect in a way that she knew would have made Hannah happy. Plus, she hoped that having the legacy of her best friend, in the form of her daughters, around her all the time would help her remember Hannah as she had been, and that they would help fully heal the pain that their mother's death had left upon her.

The alarm on her omni-tool caught her in the middle of her introspective thoughts and reminded her that she'd have to head to the space port soon to pick up Sydney and McKenzie. She double checked that everything in the house was ready for when she came back with the girls before stepping outside to her skycar and locking the door to her home. Once she climbed into the car, her nerves returned to her in full force and she paused to take a few deep, calming breaths. _I can do this. Not only is the right thing to do, it's what Hannah would have done,_ she reminded herself. Using the memory of Hannah as a strengthening catalyst, she started up the skycar and rose into the air.

As Karin input the direction to the space port and set the destination, the skycar took off and she allowed herself one last moment of nervousness before banishing all anxiety over her decision. _What's done is done. I'm going to take the girls in and give them all the support I could possibly give them. I can do this.  
_

* * *

_A/N - Sanves is an actual planet, but it's just some random one from the wiki. I didn't want to do a main world since there was already so much stuff about it, I wanted freedom to create this world as my own, so to speak._

_I wanted to dedicate an entire chapter to Chakwas to introduce her, so because of it, this is kinda short (and may have something to do with the fact I'm stupidly busy but still tried to get a chapter up today) so hopefully you guys liked it :) I also kinda ballparked Chakwas' age to be around 48-ish, putting her around 18/19 when the FCW happened. So her choice of where to pursue medicine is because of that. Also, hoped you liked a little bit of ME canon infused into her history :) and hopefully all the transitions in her life seemed believable._

_And she never had the hots for Hannah, sisterly love people, sisterly love. There'll be plenty of lovin' with Shep and Liara later on, so cool your jets ;)_


	16. We're Not in Kansas Anymore

Chapter 16 - We're Not in Kansas Anymore

After they had left Earth on the _UT-04527_, their first relay jump had been into the Serpent Nebula since there was no direct relay link to the Athena Nebula from the Local Cluster. Shepard didn't think that they'd really get to see the Citadel at all when they dropped out of the relay, so when the jump ended the sight that was before her took her breath away.

The Citadel lay nestled within the ambience of the lavender nebula enveloping it, which lit up the entire structure magnificently, causing it to glow brightly against the blackness of space. It's five colossal arms were stretched open, the lights from the different wards shining, and Shepard could see all the way to the circular ring of the Presidium. Thousands of ships of every size and origin could be seen waiting to dock with it. Her and McKenzie were awed by the sight and her sister was clamoring all over her in order to try and get a better view of it through the ship's window. Shepard chuckled but couldn't help agreeing with McKenzie's enthusiasm and wonder. She'd probably be acting the same way if she'd been any younger, and as it was she was having trouble containing her own excitement.

In a theoretical sense Shepard had had a picture in her head of how space was going to be, but nothing could have prepared her for the actual thing. That was something that was true for most people who had ideas for how the universe was going to look. But without actually going into space first, the magnitude of everything in the galaxy can never be properly envisioned. Objectively she knew the relays were going to be big, and that planets and stars were huge bodies of mass, but the human brain can have a hard time grasping just how large everything really is. When they had traveled close to the relay, all her previous proportions had been utterly shattered.

Their time in Citadel space was brief though, and they dropped out of the relay just long enough for the pilot to send in new coordinates before they prepared for another jump. The first leg of the journey had taken right around 10 hours, most of which had been spent sleeping, and their next jump would be shorter than that, since the distance to the Athena Nebula was almost half the distance between Earth and the Citadel. The comms crackled to life as the ship's captain announced that they'd be making the next jump, and all the passengers took their last glimpses of the Citadel before they continued on their flight.

The relay loomed once more, and just as their vision was becoming entirely engulfed in blue, the relay locked on to the ship's signature and sent it shuddering into its next jump. McKenzie stayed pressed up against the window for a few more moments hoping that she'd see something else interesting, but when she realized that all she was going to see was stars streaking by in a blur and inky blackness, she huffed unhappily. "It's boring now!" she said. She crawled back into her seat and pouted slightly at her sister, as if she could somehow make it more interesting.

Shepard laughed and ruffled her hair saying, "Not everything is super exciting, Kenz. There's a lot of empty space in space."

"Space in space?" MeKenzie questioned, her face scrunched up confusedly. "Sissy that doesn't make sense."

"Sure it does, just think about it. In space, there is a lot of empty space between stars and planets. Not everything is really close together."

She watched as her younger sister thought about the words again and she could almost see the cogs turning in her head. It was a pretty advanced concept for a six year old, grasping how big and far in between things in space really were, and she didn't really expect McKenzie to even begin to fully understand it. Hell, she could hardly comprehend the size of the galaxy herself and she'd been reading as much as she could and learning about it all through her childhood.

And she was right on the money when McKenzie just shook her head and sighed unhappily. "I still don't get it, sissy," she poked her sister's arm, "I'm not as smart as you."

"Aww, no way, Kenzie-bear, you're plenty smart, and I bet when you're as old as me, you'll be way smarter than I am now," she reassured her sister, tickling her a little bit and making her giggle loudly.

They got a couple of disgruntled stares from a few of the passengers for their somewhat loud antics, but it made them giggle even harder because one of the passengers looked like a scowling toad with his eyes bulging out and a deep frown cutting across his face. It took them a few more minutes to catch their breaths and calm down completely, but eventually they quieted and McKenzie pulled up her omni-tool to play some games, and Shepard leaned back into her seat to try and sleep a little bit more.

She drifted off and McKenzie followed about an hour later, and both Shepard sisters slept as they waited to arrive in the Athena Nebula.

-.-.-.-.-

Aunt Karin was waiting for them at the space port in the capital city, Etheai, and as soon as McKenzie saw her she shrieked happily and bolted to her. "Aunt Chawas!"

Karin laughed at the enthusiasm and caught her up as McKenzie ran up to her and gave her 'niece' a huge hug, kissing her cheek as the girl wrapped her arms tightly around the older woman's neck. Shepard broke into a big smile at the sight and made her way, at a slower pace than McKenzie, towards her aunt and sister. Maneuvering around McKenzie, since her sister refused to budge, Shepard gave Karin a hug of her own.

"Wow, the both of you are so big! Just in the year that I last saw you you've grown so much," Karin exclaimed as she looked at the both of them, seeing them face-to-face for the first time since the funeral. Shepard looked at McKenzie in her aunt's arms and realized that her sister was a lot bigger than she had been a year before, and Karin might have been having a little bit of a hard time holding the girl.

"Hey, Kenzie-bear, why don't you get down so you don't break Aunt Karin before we even get to the house," she joked. McKenzie stuck her tongue out at Shepard, but she did allow herself to be put back down on the ground. She did keep one hand firmly in Karin's, however, and Sheprad was pretty sure she wouldn't let go for as long as possible. Their aunt had always spoiled McKenzie to no end, and the little girl absolutely _adored_ Aunt Karin.

Knowing that they'd a least gotten their initial greetings out of the way, Karin suggested that they find the cargo container with the girl's belongings so that they could depart. "Sydney, could you give me the cargo box number so we can look it up and get it transferred off the ship.

And before Shepard could even register Karin's request, or feel uncomfortable about her name, McKenzie piped up. "Sissy don't like it when you call her Sydney, Aunt Chawas," she said matter-of-factly.

Shepard looked at her sister with a little bit of shock; she'd never actually told McKenzie before that she didn't want to be called by her first name. She didn't think that her sister would understand why and so to avoid confusing her she just encouraged McKenzie to call her 'sissy'. Then she looked at Karin to gage her reaction to her sister's untimely revelation. There was a lot of confusion, and maybe a little bit of hurt, on Karin's face, but Shepard realized it might have been because Karin had taken it in such a way that she though Shepard didn't want her aunt _personally _saying her name, not realizing that it was a much more general dislike. "It's not you!" she blurted out quickly, "I just... I don't let anyone say my first name anymore," she finished quietly. The hurt and puzzlement was then replaced with one raised eyebrow and a _very_ questioning look. Shepard smiled weakly and said, "I'll fill you in once we reach the house."

Her aunt just nodded, allowing the subject to be closed for the moment, and Shepard pulled up her omni to send the cargo information to her. And as they were working their way towards the back of the ship where all the cargo would be unloaded, Shepard finally took a second to look at her surroundings. She had been pretty focused on her aunt and getting hello's out of the way, but now that she wasn't distracted, she had an extreme, "not in Kansas anymore" moment**.

When they had left Earth, all the dock workers had been human and she hadn't paid much attention to them, but they were no longer on Earth anymore. Now, asari dotted the space port and Shepard had to fight to keep her mouth from hanging wide open. She was almost having the same reaction to the aliens that she'd had to finally being in space for the first time. Sure, she knew what asari looked like and had seen plenty of vids and pictures of them, but it didn't really prepare her for seeing living, breathing asari.

She watched as they went about their jobs around the ships, and it seemed that every motion that they made was infused with a fluid grace that only the best dancers on Earth could ever hope to match. And they made it look effortless, like they weren't consciously trying to be graceful, but that it was something that came naturally to them. Her fingers itched to record some of their movements just so she could watch them over and over again later. Were all asari like this and had she just never noticed them on the vids? Was it just an innate a gift of their species? Or was it something that they learned throughout their millennia lifetimes and didn't achieve until they were older?

As she stared (completely unashamedly), she began to focus less on their movements as a whole and more specifically on different parts of their bodies. Or, more specifically, their crests. In the spot where humans would expect to see hair, asari had their elegant and decidedly alien looking... tentacles. Shepard knew it was probably rude to call them that, since it reminded her of an octopus, but if someone hadn't known what they were called, calling them tentacles would have been a very easy thing to refer to them as.

At first she was really confused by them, their shape seemed entirely complex and hard to follow, but the longer she studied them, the more she was able to puzzle out exactly how they flowed. They all had six crests that began at the top of their foreheads and down the sides of their heads, stopping about where their ears would have been, that then slicked back behind their heads in a smooth wave. The top two curved along the head somewhat tightly, and then flared out near the area that the head met the neck. The other four crests curved inwards slightly, but for the most part stuck out from the head. Most of the asari that she saw were in motion and slightly far away though, and Shepard wished she could have a closer look at them.

She realized that the asari crests were kind of like a common factor among the whole race. While almost everything else about them had a huge range of variation, like skin color, tattoos and facial features, their crest shape mostly stayed the same. It was like the hump for the krogans, the mandibles for the turians, and the head horns for the salarians; everything else about the species varied, but they all had one or two similar features that helped set their race apart from the others.

And then an awesome thought came over her before she could contemplate the subject much more, and she had to suppress an excited shout from coming out when she remembered something about Sanves. _This is an asari world... The whole planet is filled with them!_ She then also recalled that Aunt Karin had mentioned that the school she would be attending was a multi-species school, and she got even more excited knowing that her classmates were going to be people from all different races. She was still very anxious and sad that she had left behind all her friends and familiarity on Earth, but that nervousness was almost complete smothered by the new found wonder that she was experiencing about getting to meet and interact with species she had never met before.

While Shepard had been staring like a kid in a candy store, they had reached the back of the ship, so they input the information from Shepard and McKenzie's cargo container into a nearby cargo terminal and within a few minutes it was lowered down before them. When it touched ground it was jostled slightly, and from within they heard a surprised bark as whatever was inside was jostled as well.

Shepard's eyes widened and she breathed in sharply, "Sadie!", and she dashed towards the box to get it open as quickly as possible. During the flight she had forgot somewhat about her dog in the cargo hold as she had taken in the sights of space, and felt a little guilty that she hadn't remembered to go down and visit Sadie. She quickly unlocked the door and opened it, allowing her eyes to adjust to the dimness in the box before she located Sadie's kennel. The giant dog perked up immediately when she saw her owner and started wagging her tail profusely, rattling the sides of the cage a bit.

And as Shepard opened and knelt down in from of Sadie's cage, getting big wet dog kisses, she realized with more than a little chagrin and some slight horror, that she may have forgotten to tell her aunt how big Sadie was... Or maybe she had just forgotten to tell Karin about her point blank.

Shepard slowly turned back to her aunt and was filled with apprehension to see how Aunt Karin would react to her dog. When Shepard faced her fully, she was greeted with a completely blank face, and didn't know whether she should be worried or relieved. "Sooo..."

"So you have a dog," Karin stated neutrally.

Shepard gulped nervously and nodded her head, "Yup."

Little did her niece know, but Karin liked dogs pretty well, and she was actually struggling to keep her smile repressed in order to let Sydney squirm a little bit. While she didn't mind that they had brought a dog, she did want to get the message across that Sydney should have remembered to tell her. The whole situation could have ended very badly if Karin was someone who had hated dogs or was allergic to them.

Shepard waited _extremely_ nervously to see how Aunt Karin would react to Sadie, and berated herself over and over again for forgetting to mention something so huge and important. _Please let me keep her. Please let me keep her, _she chanted to herself.

After watching her niece squirm for a few more seconds, and trying to contain her laughter as she saw McKenzie staring with big eyes back and forth between her aunt and her sister, Karin finally cracked a small smile. "Sadie, huh? So I'm guessing she's a girl?"

-.-.-.-.-

The trip to Karin's house was quick, and within two hours they had the cargo container delivered to the house and the girls were able to start slowly unloading their stuff. McKenzie couldn't do much of the heavy lifting, so it fell to Karin and Shepard. On Earth when everything had been loaded up, it had been a combined effort by all the Rolden's, Julia and herself, and it hadn't taken very long. Since there were only the two of them now it took a lot longer, but they stuck with it and slowly made their way through all of their stuff. Shepard was able to use her somewhat weak biotics to help with some of the exceptionally heavy things, which was a large asset to the unpacking cause. McKenzie was given the task of finding the little things that had been packed in amongst the bulkier boxes and carrying them inside the house.

The whole thing took them longer than they would have liked, but eventually they had everything unloaded from the container and they sent it back to the space port. Before they had unpacked everything, Karin had showed them where they were going to be staying, so they'd been able to put everything in their respective rooms as they emptied the cargo container. By the time everything had been brought into the house and sorted into the rooms, it had already been a few hours and it was already dark, so Shepard and McKenzie only unboxed what they would need for sleeping that night and a few changes of clothes. Everyone was tired and hungry so they were going to eat dinner and then head to bed early after a long day.

McKenzie ate almost mechanically, her eyes half closed and swallowing on reflex, and when she finished she started to nod off in her chair. Shepard chuckled at the sight and helped her sister get to her room to get ready for bed. She pulled back the new covers and sheets of the new bed and tucked McKenzie in, sitting there for a few moments and lightly stroked her sister's hair. "So how you doing, Kenzie-Bear?" she asked her quietly.

"Tired," McKenzie replied with a yawn.

Shepard laughed softly at her but grew a bit more serious a few moments later. "Really, Kenz, how are you doing with all this?"

She watched as a contemplative expression filled her sister's face. The look seemed way too mature for a six and a half year old, and she felt some sorrow when she realized that, even thought she had tried to keep it from her, the last year had forced McKenzie to be more mature than her years dictated. _Guess I didn't do as good a job as I thought..._

Shepard was snapped out of her internal wallowing at McKenzie's voice. "I was a little scared when we said bye to Tuck-Tuck and Julia. And when I saw the big ship. And when we went in that big blue thing... Those were scary," she confessed to her big sister. "But you were with me, so wasn't that bad." That brought a smile to Shepard's face. "And when we got off the big ship all those tall blue ladies were kinda weirds too, but Aunt Chawas was there, and we got Sadie too, so it's not too bad," McKenzie continued. Then she paused for a moment to make sure that she had said everything, and then smiled big at Shepard. "You're smartest and bravest, sissy, so even though I was a little scared, I know you'll take care of me."

Shepard was fighting off tears because of how much faith McKenzie had in her, mostly because she was touched, but a little bit from fear too; fear she would fail her sister. McKenzie saw the watery eyes and got a little fearful because she thought she had said something wrong to make her sister cry. "Don't cry, sissy! I'm sorry, did I say something bad?" she asked with a trembling lower lip, she herself about to cry if she had made her sister upset.

Shepard grabbed McKenzie up in a fierce hug and held her tightly, saying, "No, no, Kenzie-bear, you didn't say anything bad!"

She heard a muffled, "Promise?" from her sister, who had buried her face in her sister's shoulder, and Shepard gave another squeeze.

"I promise, baby. I'm crying because I love you so much and because you are the sweetest little girl ever."

McKenzie pulled back a little and looked up with a radiant smile. "Really?"

Shepard kissed her sister's nose and grinned back. "Really, really. And you're the best little sister ever."

"Well you're the bestest big sister ever!" she exclaimed back, and reached up to kiss her big sister's cheek. "So that makes us the bestest sisters ever!"

Shepard laughed at that and nodded, "Sure does, Kenzie-bear." And then she saw her sister yawn again and knew that she needed sleep. "Alrighty, Kenz, bed time for real," she told McKenzie.

"Okays." McKenzie rubbed her eyes and curled back up in bed.

She looked at her sister and thought about how brave the little girl really was. "Thanks for talking with me, Kenzie, you're a brave girl," she whispered.

"Thanks," a yawn, "sissy, you're brave too." And then she drifted off to sleep.

Shepard gave her a kiss on the forehead, got up and turned off the light, and left the door cracked open as she exited the room.

Shepard quietly padded down the hallway, Sadie following right behind her since she hadn't left her owner's side since they had reached the house, and she headed back towards the kitchen and went to help Karin clean up the rest of the dishes from dinner. They worked together for a few minutes in relative silence until everything was either put away or set to clean in the washer. Karin started to make a cup of tea, silently inquiring if Shepard would like some as well, and making a second cup when she got an affirmative.

When they both had mugs of hot tea in hand, they gravitated to the living room to sit down. Karin sat on large, dark brown couch, and Shepard perched nervously on the edge of a plush sofa chair as Sadie curled up on the floor by her.

Shepard knew exactly what her aunt wanted to talk about ever since McKenzie had let it slip earlier in the morning that her older sister no longer went by her first name. She knew it needed to get out in the open and discussed, but she was not looking forward to riffling up old wounds and reexamining past pains. Unfortunately she knew that there was no way Aunt Karin would let it go.

So Shepard sat apprehensively in her seat, petting Sadie's head nervously, clutching her cup tightly, and waiting for Aunt Karin to stop fiddling with her own tea and ask the question that she knew was at the forefront of her mind.

"Tell me."

* * *

_** "Not in Kansas anymore" is a reference to the movie 'The Wizard of Oz' (if you haven't seen it), and it's a line in the movie that basically means 'in a foreign or new place, far away from home.' Sydney isn't from Kansas. (I didn't know if this was only an American saying, so I added this to clear up confusion)  
_

* * *

_A/N - I was on vacation this past week which is why I missed the last Friday post date, sorry! But, since I love you all dearly, you get two chapters today to make up for it :) I'm posting these early because I'm going to be gone all freaking day._

_Also, if you ever wonder where I am or what's going on with me, check my profile, and at the top I have __**"What Am I Up To"**__ and I'll always have what is happening in my life and it'll explain if/why I ever slow down updates._

_Now is when I'll pretty much start calling Sydney by her last name exclusively. There will be a few times when I use 'Sydney', (i.e. like when it's Karin's thoughts about her) when the situation or person is right for it._

_ps. And, all of you guys kept bring up Sadie so I decided that it somehow slipped Shepard's mind to tell Chakwas about her haha. No allergies though :P_


	17. Past, Present and Future

Chapter 17 - Past, Present and Future

_"Tell me."_

"It started in the hospital," Shepard began quietly, preparing herself to allow the old pains to wash back through her mind. "A few months after the doctors told us she had cancer, Mom just couldn't stay home anymore. She was in too much pain and the doctors needed to be able to check on her a lot more often, so it was just more prudent to let her stay in the hospital. Dad didn't like, none of us did, but it's what she needed. It was hard. Dad still had to work, I still had to go to school and skyball practice, and McKenzie still had to go to kindergarten. We skipped as much as we could to sit with her and keep her company in the hospital, but you know how she was, and she insisted that we go to school and stuff.

"Around October is when it got really bad. Before, the changes to her body had been slower and a much more subtle, if we tried hard enough we could overlook what the cancer had been doing, but the last few weeks it was impossible to ignore. Aunt Karin she was so small and pale," she choked out, closing her eyes as the image of her frail mother burned across her vision. It had been awful to see her mom like that, the complete opposite of everything she had ever been. Hannah had always been outgoing, vibrant and so full of life, and seeing her as she had been in the hospital had torn her up. Shepard opened her eyes when she felt a hand tug her up. Karin guided her over to the couch and sat her down next to her.

"Take your time," Karin told her quietly.

Shepard nodded and took a deep breath, holding it for a few moments before letting it out. "Thinking about it now I think it was a combination of a lot of things. Seeing Mom like that was a lot of it, but it was also the sterile atmosphere of the hospital and one other thing that caused me to shed 'Sydney'," she explained slowly. "It was the last night that she..." she shuddered to a stop and had to breath a few more times. Aunt Karin held her hand and rubbed her back soothingly. "We had been at the hospital all day, and when it was getting dark I told my dad that we all needed to go home and sleep. When we got to the house he told me and Kenz to go to sleep, but he refused to stay home, and was going to head back to the hospital."

Thinking back on it Shepard realized that argument was the first time she had clashed with her dad. His reaction probably should have clued her in that he was not taking things well, but then again there had been a lot of other warning signs too. _Hindsight is 20/20, though, _she thought wryly. Noticing that she had stopped talking she cleared her throat and continued. "I guess you could say that night was when things with Dad started going down hill, but I didn't know it at the time. Anyway, I was getting ready to go to bed and I thought he had left to go back to the hospital, but then he came back into the house and told me to wake McKenzie up and that we were _all_ going back. Even though he hadn't said anything I knew it was bad. I was terrified as I woke McKenzie up. I seriously thought I was going to throw up the entire way to the hospital. Dad looked like a dead man walking, and McKenzie was just really confused and knowing that she had no idea what was going on made me all the more afraid.

"How do you tell your baby sister that her mommy is about to die? How do you explain that you'll never see her again? Yeah, it was pretty accurate to say that I was absolutely terrified, and I hadn't even really focused on how it was going to affect me at the time. That night was only two weeks away from my15th birthday, and I hadn't even thought about what it was going to be like having my first birthday without my mom." Tears were starting to form in Shepard's eyes but she was too far into the memory to realize or to care.

"So we got to the hospital, that damn hospital that we had spent way too much time in, and the doctors told us that she was going to die." Shepard laughed harshly at that, and Karin was slightly startled by the rough sound. "Oh, they didn't say it so bluntly, they fluttered around it, saying things like, 'she doesn't have much more time,' or 'you may want to say your goodbyes' when really they just meant, 'Yup, your mom is going to die'."

Being a doctor herself, Karin knew that Sydney had no idea how hard it was for doctors as well to tell the family of their patients that death was imminent. Saving lives was the reason that she had wanted to be a doctor, and she had saved many in her years as a medical practitioner, but the hardest thing about being a doctor was knowing that you couldn't save everyone. Death was an inevitable variable that had to be accepted, but that didn't mean that it got any easier as the years went on. So she knew Sydney's cynical comment wasn't entirely what she meant, mainly she was just fueled by the pain and absolute sorrow of her mother's death. As she was reflecting though, Sydney had started talking again so she refocused on her niece.

"... told my dad to go in and talk to her first. He was in there for a long time with her, but I expected that. I had hoped that she would be able to reassure him and help him accept her death as she had been able to accept it. But if it was possible he came out looking worse than he did when he had first gone in to see her. I walked McKenzie down the hallway next, and stood outside as Mom talked with her. I never asked either of them what they talked about and they never asked about what she said to me. Maybe someday we'll share, but I can't see it happening anytime soon.

"So when McKenzie was done I sat her down next to my dad, who looked like he was ready to be admitted to a hospital room himself, and then I made my way in to say goodbye as well. I had seen her a few hours prior, but whatever had happened in her body had happened fast, and she looked even weaker. It was probably the worst day of my life," Shepard said, "a close second being the day that we first found out she had cancer in the first place. I seriously had never been more angry, more sad or more frightened in my entire life. I couldn't even talk at first because I was so confused and afraid. But of course, Mom knew exactly what to say."

Karin watched as Sydney closed her eyes and gripped her hand a little bit tighter. She reasoned that what she was about to hear was probably the crux of the issue about her first name. It had already been a heartbreaking story, and Karin was starting to realize just how much pain the Shepard family had gone through that night. Then Sydney took another deep breath and spilled out the rest of the story.

"Earlier that day, before we had gone home from the hospital, Momma asked me to make a promise to her. She asked me to watch out for Daddy and McKenzie. She told me she wanted me to help keep our family together after she was gone. At first I had agreed pretty readily because I loved my family and I figured I would have done it anyway. But as I sat there with my dying mother in front of me, I was hit with the finality of the situation, and the difficulty of the promise I had made hours prior came upon me with a vengeance. Was I crazy? How could I keep my family together after something like this? I would never be able to live up to how amazing Momma was, who was I kidding. I think I had a little freak out moment, but of course she knew, even then, how to calm me down.

_"You don't have to be perfect, baby girl. I'm not expecting you to ignore your own sadness and only focus on your father and McKenzie. Don't ever think that I expect the impossible from you."_

"She told me that I didn't have to be perfect, and that I shouldn't push away how I was going to feel in favor of helping Daddy and Kenz. I felt a little bit like a walking contradiction when she said that she didn't expect the impossible from me. I knew she didn't expect me to be able to do everything perfectly and that she was alright with me just trying my hardest, even if I failed, and that took a load off my chest. At the same time, however, it made me incredibly sad and almost a little bit angry because I would be disappointing myself by not being able to meet the standards that I had set for myself by always wanting to be the best for her. I know it's a stupid sort of Catch 22** that is a bit ridiculous, but who ever said teenagers were rational?

"Anyway, the whole time we were talking I could tell she was getting weaker and weaker. She had to take a breath between almost every word and she could barely keep her eyes open. I knew she was fading quickly and I just wanted to be as close to her as I could while she was still there. I crawled into the hospital bed with her and pulled the blanket over both of us and held onto her hand like it was life itself." Sydney was speaking at almost a whisper at this point, her voice hoarse, and Karin could see the tears streaming unchecked down her face. She felt a little bit guilty now about asking Sydney to relive such painful memories, not realizing what she was asking of the girl when she requested to know about her aversion to her first name. It had moved beyond a simple explanation at this point, so all she could do was hold onto her niece and allow her to get everything out.

"When I was growing up, Momma would always call me her little shepherd because I always wanted to make sure everyone was okay and I helped wherever I could. I know I got that need to help others from her so I loved it when she called me that. As we were laying there, me watching my mom dying right before my eyes, she called me that again, but she also said my name as well. I guess now that I think about it, I easily could have hated my last name if she had ended with shepherd instead of Sydney, but it was a fifty-fifty toss up with my first name losing out.

"What ended up happening was that every time someone said my name, all the memories and pain from that last night would hit me like a wall. For the first few months I sort of just endured it. I didn't know how to get it to stop, and it was a lot easier to just find a way around it instead of trying to fix it, so I to decrease the amount of people that knew my first name, I would just introduce myself as S or Shepard. That helped, but people at school still called me Sydney, and so I slowly started requesting that people refer to me by my last name. It was slow going at first, with some people just being pricks, but eventually I got everyone calling me Shepard. I have gotten used to everyone call me that, so now whenever I hear Sydney it's almost worse because I hear it so rarely and the pain just seems more intense."

Karin waited for more because the narrative seemed to end abruptly, but it seemed that Sydney was done with the story or just couldn't talk anymore. They both sat there in silence, one contemplating what they had just heard and the other thinking about their action over the course of the last year. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence, but it was thick with newly revealed and older, relived emotions.

Eventually Shepard released her death grip on her aunt's hand and gently wiped away the tears on her face and tried to rub out some of the redness from her eyes. She took a deep cleansing breath and released it slowly, trying to calm herself and put to rest the old memories. She arched her back and twisted her neck back and forth as well to relieve the tension in her previously clenched up muscles. When she felt sufficiently relaxed, or maybe just less tense then she had been while recounting her story, she turned to Karin and eyed her expectantly. When she didn't say anything, Shepard awkwardly said "So... yeah."

Karin chuckled at the sentence because it was so teenager like. Even after an almost eloquently delivered narrative, and an emotional story that had dredged up old pains for Sydney, she was glad her niece still had the ability to be a teenager. She reached her arm around Sydney and gave her a small side hug. "I know that was difficult for you, so thank you for explaining it to me."

Shepard relaxed into the hug and smiled softly at her. "Sorry I kind of rambled a little bit as I got to my point. I didn't really mean to dump all of that on you. I guess I haven't ever sat down with someone and explained the whole thing from start to finish since everyone from back home was kind of in the middle of it as well."

"You don't have to apologize. In fact I'm glad you felt comfortable enough to share that with me since I know it was tough." Karin deliberated for a moment but decided to share what had bothered her before Sydney's arrival. "Since you were so open with me I'll admit something to you. I was a tad nervous about you two coming to live with me since I've never had children of my own. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to be a good role model for you girls. And I'm still a bit uncertain, but knowing that you trust me enough to bare such an emotional scar to me, I am overjoyed to have you here. I know it's what Hannah would have wanted, and I think the three of us need each other and will be able to heal together."

"Thank you, by the way, for letting us stay here. I know this is a huge burden and will completely rearrange your life, but I won't ever be able to thank you enough for letting me and McKenzie come here," Shepard said quietly.

Karin very lightly thumped Shepard on the top of the head and mock scolded her, "None of this 'burden' business! You and your sister are _not_ a burden, nor will you ever be, so do not ever allow yourself to think that way. Your mother always spoke about what wonderful joys you both were and how you lit up her life, and I know your mother did not lie. I love you girls dearly, and I couldn't be more proud to call you my adopted nieces." She gave Sydney a kiss on the forehead and then announced, "Ending with an apology in advance for if I ever slip up and call you by your first name, I now declare this silly conversation closed, and the final verdict is that you are both here because I want you to be. And no more 'thank you's'!"

Shepard laughed but agreed wholeheartedly with her; she'd explained what she had needed to and now she wanted to leave the past in the past. "Sounds good to me, although I can't promise to not thanking you again." Then, remembering what she had been thinking about earlier in the day when they had been at the space port, she wanted to know more about the school she would be going to. "I know it's late, but could you tell me a little bit about this school that I'll be going to?"

"Of course! It's called the Normandy Academy, but everyone just calls it the Normandy, named after the ship of the first human SpecTR. It is set up a little bit differently than what you'd be used to on an Earthen high school, firstly because instead of calling them 'grades', they're called 'years'. So what you would call a ninth grader is called a first year at the Normandy. For humans and those species with similar life spans as ours, 14 is the youngest you can be before starting the Academy, which is where it is similar to your average high school, and it mirrors the structure until you reach the fourth year. If you were on Earth, as a fourth year you would be graduating, but since this is an asari world, school goes on for a lot longer before you exit the 'high school' stage. The Normandy is set up to be a bit of a blend since it has species of different age ranges attending. While not quite as long as an asari-only school would be, it is longer than an average human one. Does that make sense so far?"

Shepard sighed with mock disappointment. "Man, if I had known I would have to be going to school for _longer_ when I signed up to come live here I might have changed my mind," she joked and winked at her aunt. "But yeah, that makes sense. I do have a question though, about the age thing."

Karin nodded. "I figured you would."

"So there will be kids there who will be older than me... but the same age? Did I say that right?" she asked hesitantly.

"Essentially, yes. Especially with the krogan and the asari, there may be very large age gaps between some of the students, but maturity-wise, everyone in the same year will mostly be at the same level."

That put Shepard at ease. "Okay that's what I was kind of worried about, but that makes sense. It's because they age, or I guess mature, slower than us right? Since they live so long."

"Exactly. I do not really think it will be much of an issue, though. When you get there and meet people it won't feel like they're older than you. When the school was first thought up and planned, whoever it was that designed it did a very good job integrating all the different nuances of the various species."

"Speaking of, when _do_ I start going? And what year will I be? And where will McKenzie go? Are there other species at her school too?" The questions tumbled out one after another once she started thinking about them.

Karin smiled wryly as she listed to Shepard's word vomit. "So which one do you want me to answer first?"

Shepard blushed with at her slight word vomit, but decided she wanted to hear the answer to her first question. "Uh, I guess when I'll be starting and what year will I be."

"Since you just turned 16 you would have been a second year had you started the Normandy as a first year. But since you're starting in the middle of the year and I know you're smart, I was able to get you started as a third year. I figured it would a little easier to be a little bit younger instead of a lot older than all of your peers.

Shepard was very thankful that her aunt had set it up like that. "Thanks, I'd rather be a bit younger than to be that one kid who is older than everyone else. At least if people make assumptions about my age now it'll be to wonder if I was smarter than average so I got moved ahead instead of wondering if I was too dumb and got held back."

Karin laughed at that, "Indeed. As to when you'll start, I have all of the forms filled out and ready to turn in to administration, so that's not a problem. It's up to you, in a way. If you really wanted to, I could get everything set up and you could start tomorrow." Shepard really didn't want to start that soon, and tried not to let it look like she was ungrateful for her aunt's help, but a bit of the reluctance she was feeling showed on her face. Ever observant, Karin laughed when she noticed Shepard's reaction. "I figured you'd like a few days to settle in first. That brings me to my second idea. It's the middle of the week right now anyway, so I suggest you just wait until next week to start. That'll give you a couple of days to unpack and get everything organized how you want before starting school. And that way you'll start at the beginning of the week instead of midway through it."

"I guess there's no way around the fact that I'll be starting in the middle of the school year is there?" Shepard asked somewhat dejectedly. She didn't mind having to meet new people, she was actually pretty excited about that. It was being the new kid and playing 'catch up' to learn everything she had missed that she wasn't looking forward to.

"No, I'm afraid that is unavoidable. But you are a smart girl, and I know you will not have trouble covering the material quickly. I dare say you may actually end up enjoying school here a lot more because you will be in subjects that you never would have learned about had you stayed on Earth. I know you love everything about space, so you'll be excited to know that there are plenty of classes to sate your curiosity. There is only one concern I have, and that is figuring out which classes from previous years you may have to take because you were not at the school to take them."

"What do you mean?"

"I know that for some classes you take as a third year require pre-requisites from previous years, and you wouldn't have them. If you are in that situation you would need to take the earlier classes before the third year classes. Since I'm the head doctor and not on teaching staff, I don't know the logistics of it, but just in case, and because it'd be nice to have your schedule beforehand, I'll take you to the school the day before you start so we can get everything set up and figured out."

"Well it's good to know that one thing won't change even though I've moved so far away."

"And what's that?"

"School is still annoying as ever." Both of them laughed at that, but then Shepard's laugh was interrupted by a yawn. Karin checked the time on her omni and realized that they had been talking for quite a while, and she knew that Sydney was probably extremely tired and emotionally drained.

"Alright, dear, you look exhausted so let's get you to bed."

Shepard agreed with another yawn, standing up and stretching her arms above her head. "Night Aunt Karin. Do you need us to be up at a certain time?" she asked.

Karin stood up when Sydney did and waved her had dismissively, taking her niece's mug from her. "No, you and McKenzie can sleep in as late as you need to. I was able to get a few days off at the school because I wanted to be at the house to help you two get settled in. I'll make breakfast when you're both up and then we can decide from there how the day will go."

"Sounds good," Shepard said. She hesitated for a moment, but then leaned in and gave her aunt a small kiss on the cheek. "You really are the best for taking us in like this, so thank you again," she said quietly.

Karin moved both cups into one and reached over to give Shepard a hug and a kiss of her own on the forehead. "It's what family does for each other, kiddo, and I'm glad you're here."

They embraced for a few more moments and then Shepard pulled away and headed for her new room. Sadie got up behind her and trailed her into the room as well. She could tell by how Sadie followed her around everywhere that her dog was a little nervous about being in a foreign place, but Shepard knew she'd get used to her surroundings eventually.

As Shepard got ready for bed, Sadie curled back up at the foot of the bed and waited for her master to go to sleep as well. Shepard crawled in and loosely pulled the covers over her, turning off the lights with her omni, she then took it off her wrist and set it on the bedside table. In the darkness, as she went back over everything that had happened that day, she thought about what life was going to be like from then on. It was certainly different from anything that she could have ever imagined.

As she was thinking, she heard the door to her room open and the light patter of small feet along the floor. A few moments later she felt her bed sink in a little bit and a warm body snuggled into her back. Shepard smiled to herself as she felt McKenzie get settled in her bed and realized that not everything was new or different. _Maybe I have a new room, a new house and a new life, but I still have McKenzie and Sadie. And Aunt Karin_. Shepard knew it could have been a whole lot worse, and she was extremely thankful about how things had turned out.

She turned over as gently as possible and hugged her sister close. _Sydney and McKenzie Shepard: 'Bestest sisters ever',_ was her last thought before she drifted off into her first sleep in her new home.

* * *

_** 'Catch 22' is a book (bizarre but a good read) about World War II. It often brings up what is called a catch-22, which is essentially an impossible situation where no matter what you do, something undesirable will happen. It's a seriously weird book, but worth a read.  
_

* * *

_A/N - Bit of a recap chapter, but hopefully it hit different parts of the story that I hadn't previous brought up in earlier chapters. And first glimpse at how the Normandy Academy will function! Yes I stole a tad from Harry Potter, but JK Rowling is a freaking genius. Anyway, enjoy your double chapter day! ;)_


	18. The Oddities of New Adventures

Chapter 18 - The Oddities of New Adventures

Sometimes, days drag on endlessly, time can seem to stretch infernally slow and drag on and on. But other times, it zips by faster than people think possible, and hits us on the way out as it rushes onward. Shepard felt an uncomfortable mix of the two phenomenon as time passed and the day for her to start school approached. She was always extremely busy during the days; unpacking and sorting through all of her boxes and getting her room set up with all her things. She had to get familiar with her new room and readjust to the surroundings that the new house brought with it.

Her aunt Karin's house wasn't excessively large by any means, but the first few days she had a little bit of trouble remembering where everything was, and sometimes wandered embarrassingly around the house trying to find different rooms. Slowly but surely, however, she mapped out all the rooms in her head and learned where everything was.

When you entered, the front door led into the first floor of the house and the entry way was a large, open space that morphed straight into the living room. Directly above the doorway was a high ceiling that reached all the way up to the ceiling of the second floor. There was a small nook immediately to the left, tucked to the side of the main stairs, and a doorway that led to her aunt's office. Passed the staircase, which was on the left, was the main room, which was divided into a living room on the left side by the sofa. The living room was an open space, but veering off to the left of it along the staircase wall was a door that led to the master bedroom. In the opposite direction was a wall, punctuated by two open archways on opposite ends, that led into the dining room. Beyond the dining room was the kitchen, which on one side had a door to the area where the skycar was parked, and then another door on the opposite end which led to the back yard.

Another, smaller staircase led up from the kitchen to the second floor and opened directly into an open room, with the hallway that led to some other bedrooms at the top and to the left. The guest rooms were on the opposite side of the house, but still on the second floor. The main room of the second floor was basically a large, indoor balcony of sorts, and was directly over the living room of the first floor. It was, in essence, a second living room, or a den, and had a few more couches and a large vid screen. Of the three walls that encased the top floor, the back wall had windows that overlooked the back yard. The fourth side of the second floor was open air and was lined by a handrail, and if you looked over the edge, it was a view of the front door and entryway.

Shepard and McKenzie had rooms close to each other on the second floor, something she was thankful for because she wanted to make sure she was near her sister. While a repeat of the first night had only happened one other time, and her sister had slept in her own bed for most nights, McKenzie's proximity put her at ease. She wanted to make sure that McKenzie felt as comfortable as possible in their new environment and would be able to get to her quickly if needed. Shepard herself also drew comfort from having her sister close by. She may have been the older sibling, but she was just as prone to fear of the unknown as McKenzie was, and had ruefully admitted to herself that her own apprehension was quelled by having her younger sister nearby.

So as her days were filled with work and unpacking, the hours of daylight seemed to disappear more rapidly than she thought possible. Inversely, as soon as the sun set, the hours of darkness stifled her like a heavy blanket when she tried to sleep. Her mind was left to wander and her thoughts conjured up scenario after scenario about how the Normandy would be and who she would meet. And while, for the most part, it was idle curiosity and wondering, the occasional spike of fear made itself known when she thought about entering the school and knowing nothing and no one. All of the speculations swirled around in her mind and seemed to repel sleep like oppositely charged magnets, forcing her nights to drag on and on.

After days of having time seemingly fast forwarded and then slowed to a crawl, the day of her meeting with the head of the school to discuss her schedule crept up on her. The night before, she got very little sleep because her brain went into overdrive conjuring up all sorts of ways that the appointment would go. Aunt Karin told her that she'd tell her details in the morning, so she was left wondering who the head of the school was. Did they call them principals here like they did on Earth, or something else? Were they male or female? Were they asari or some other race? And beyond their physical characteristics, what would their personality be like? Harsh and strict like the stereotypical principals in the vids, or more laid back and normal? She wished Aunt Karin had told her earlier so that she wouldn't have stayed up all night pondering.

After a fitful night of barely any sleep, Shepard woke up to the wonderful smell of breakfast being cooked and languidly stretched in bed before she got up. _Well, today's the day I figure out what the heck this school is going to be like. _She threw her covers back and climbed out of bed, heading towards her closet to throw on a sweatshirt before heading downstairs. Shepard liked sleeping with her room colder so that she could sleep in only shorts and a big shirt, but still have lots of blankets to keep her warm. She enjoyed burrowing into the warm cloth and cocooning herself in her covers. The only down side was that once she woke up and got out of bed, the air was a little cold.

She quickly pulled on one of Tucker's old sweatshirts that she had 'borrowed' from him and exited her room. It hung almost to her knees and it was dark grey with a print of Tucker's favorite, all human skyball team, Terra Firma, on the front. They never did very well up against other mixed-species teams in the GSL (Galactic Skyball League), but Tucker had been a fan ever since he was a kid, and had never jumped ship just because they weren't the best.

She padded quietly down the hallway and then down the back stairs that led directly to the kitchen. When she walked in, morning light was streaming in through the windows that faced the backyard and spilling over the kitchen table. McKenzie was helping their aunt with breakfast, or, at least, trying to help. She had flour on her nose and sprinkled in her hair and was attempting to pour some sort of juice into her glass. However, Shepard could tell by how her sister was standing on her tippy-toes, and the fact that the bottle was close to full, that McKenzie was going to drop it and spill it everywhere.

And just as the thought crossed her mind, the bottle slipped from her sister's grasp and careened towards the floor. Even though she was on the other side of the room, Shepard reached out her hand instinctively and helplessly. As she did, however, the bottle of juice was engulfed in blue energy and its downward descent was halted just shy of the kitchen tiles. She had only half consciously thought of using her biotics when she had reached out, part of her had only moved in a purely impulsive reflex to futilely attempt to stop the spill. Even after having her biotics for more than a decade, she never really thought of them as a part of herself and most of the time she forgot she even had them.

"I'm sorry!" McKenzie exclaimed, her eyes wide as if she still half expected the juice to go sloshing everywhere.

Shepard lowered the bottle the rest of the way to the floor and then released the dark energy flowing through her. She walked over to her sister and patted her on the shoulder. "It's all good, Kenz, just be a little more careful next time, and don't be afraid to ask for help."

McKenzie nodded and almost reverently picked up the juice to gently set it back on the countertop. Karin reached over and poured her a glass so that McKenzie didn't try again, handing it to her and motioning for her to go sit down at the table. "There you go, dear," she told her youngest niece. Looking over at Sydney, she voiced a question she'd been wondering about ever since they had moved into the house a few days ago. "I've been meaning to ask you, how often do you use your biotics? They were very useful when we were moving in, but I haven't heard you ever talk about them much or see you use them."

Shepard rubbed the back of her neck and chuckled a bit. "Yeah... They aren't very strong at all and honestly, I forget about them a lot of the time. I was actually able to wait a few years after they manifested before I got my implant _because_ my biotics were so weak, so I was able to get outfitted with the newer L3." Shepard remembered being terrified when she had to go to the doctor's office for the operation. She'd only been 9 and hadn't really had that many more incidents with her biotics after what happened with Tucker, so as a young kid she didn't understand why she couldn't just ignore them and leave well enough alone. "I guess I have a lot to be thankful for though, because I remember that there were a lot of issues with the L2's. If I'd had stronger biotics, we wouldn't have been able to wait and I would have had to endure all the crappy headaches."

"Have you ever had any training with them?"

Shepard shook her head. "Not really. The doctors gave me a few exercises and meditations to use in case I ever felt like they got out of control, but other than that I don't use them all that much."

"Well then that will probably be the first big change for you at the Normandy. Anyone who has even a hint of biotics gets trained at the school," her aunt explained. "Because biotic abilities are something that are biologically inherent in all asari, they have to be trained, so learning how to utilize biotics was essential when they designed the school. They'll definitely put you in biotic training for one of your classes."

Shepard didn't respond right away. For most of her life she had really just ignored her power since it never really affected her. _Maybe it'll be fun to finally see what I can do and what my limitations are..._

"Speaking of which, we may need to get going fairly quickly," Karin said as she looked at her omni-tool to check the time. "Principal Tevos agreed to meet with us today to help answer any of your questions and to help get you set up at the Normandy. We have a few more minutes until we need to leave, so let's finish up eating and then we'll depart."

_Huh, so they did go with 'principal. _As they sat down to eat, Shepard wondered what McKenzie would do while they were gone. "Aunt Karin, is Kenz going to stay here or come with us to the school?"

"Actually, I was going to ask McKenzie if she wanted to accompany us because I have some errands that I need to run. I was thinking we could go to the school first and I could help you get started with Principal Tevos and then McKenzie could come with me." She turned to the younger girl, "Does that sound good to you?"

"Yeah!" McKenzie cheered. She loved any time that she got to spend with her aunt.

Karin smiled at her enthusiasm. "It's settled then."

-.-.-.-.-

Since it was not a school day, the parking lot was only sparsely dotted with skycars, and they were able to land right in front of the school. They all climbed out and got a good look at the Academy as they approached it.

The building seemed to be built primarily out of sleek metal and glass, with the occasional concrete or stone pillar, and had many rounded edges and smooth curves. They headed to what she gathered was the main entrance of the building, and it rose a few stories in the air with the side facing them being made almost entirely of glass panels with metal only sparsely used as support. The top arched gracefully in a half oval before connecting with stone columns that ran all the way down to the front doors. The rest of the building was only two stories tall and seemed to branch off in different directions from the tall glass portion. From what she could tell, the left side wasn't as long as the right side, and the front entrance was not in the dead center of the building. The architecture seemed to blend nicely with the environment around it and looked as though it was meant to be there. The sun glinted beautifully off its surfaces and made the school look like a shiny new present that had just been unwrapped.

All of the lawns in front of the school were perfectly manicured, the trees and bushes that dotted the walkways were healthy and vibrant. The foliage was one thing that threw Shepard off since she had arrived on Sanves. Even though she knew she was on a different planet, for some reason her brain had made the assumption that it would be similar to Earth. Whenever she stepped outside and looked at the plants around, there was a feeling of off-ness that settle over her. It was as if things were almost close enough to how they were on Earth to feel familiar, but were just different enough to stand out. The leaves just had stranger shapes, the branches grew at just slightly odder angles, and the colors were just a tad off. It all gave off an 'alien' vibe that constantly reminded her that she wasn't on Earth anymore.

So she was still getting used to the plant life, but from what she could see at the school, it was normal enough for what she had come to deem as average on Sanves. In fact the school was so pristine looking, it made her wonder how old the school was since it still looked brand new.

"It's so shiny!" McKenzie exclaimed, captivated by its sparkling beauty.

Shepard laughed but definitely agreed with her. "How old is the Academy anyway," she asked, deciding to sate her curiosity. "It looks like it was just constructed a year ago."

Her aunt chuckled because that was a question that came up a lot. "It is funny you bring that up, since that is something that many people ask when they visit the school." They had reached the pathway that led into the school, and passed into the shade of the overhead covering. "As you know, when the school was first commissioned, it was in honor of the famous ship the _Normandy_. Because of this, the Academy is more than just a school, it is a symbol, and the people that began the school wanted it to remain in upstanding condition. The Systems Alliance was very honored at having their first SpecTRe recognized in such a way, so they agreed to pay for a new, state of the art cleaning system that had just been developed." They reached the front of the building and large, sleek metal doors whooshed open silently, admitting them into the main foyer of the school.

If possible the inside was almost more amazing than the outside. All of the glass that Shepard had seen on the exterior allowed streams of light to filter into a massive sort of atrium that seemed to constitute the foyer. The first part was a little narrower and to the left and right were doors that led to a few offices and counters where visitors could sign in. After that it expanded into a much larger area that had many carpeted sections with small clusters of couches, chairs and tables. In the center was a small fountain that was happily babbling with clean, flowing water, and beautiful potted plants were dotted around the room. "Holy crap..." Shepard breathed, immensely impressed with what she had seen so far.

Karin laughed at the reaction, for it was one that she had seen on many a student's face the first time they entered the school. "It is something, is it not?"

"Way cooler than any school I've ever seen!"

"And this is only the main entrance," her aunt replied, and Shepard was wondering how much better it could get if she was already sufficiently awed.

McKenzie was tugging on her sister's hand to try and run over to the fountain, but Karin led them instead across the atrium to the far right side, and some more doors, also made of glass, opened just as silently as the front doors had when they approached. These led into a more stereotypical looking school hallway that was lined by what Shepard assumed were lockers. They didn't look like any she had seen on Earth, but the way they were positioned and the sheer amount of them convinced her that they couldn't be anything else but. "I'm guessing these are lockers?" she asked.

Karin nodded, "Yes, though the original name for them was footlockers, most of the kids here shortened them to the term that you are used to from Earth."

Shepard walked over to a wall of them and reached out to touch one. They didn't look to be made entirely of metal since it didn't gleam reflectively, so she figured it was more of a synthetic mix between metal and plastic, and they only had the faintest hint of a seam where she assumed they opened from. But they didn't look to have and hinges, so she also wondered how they opened. When her hand got close, and interface popped up and requested a passcode. Making sure she wouldn't mess anything up, she asked, "Can I see what happens?"

Her aunt chuckled and nodded her head affirmative. Shepard reached out and lightly tapped on the holographic keypad, entering in a random array of numbers. The interface immediately flashed red after she had input six numbers and reset the keypad when the wrong code was entered. "Huh, this is pretty cool! I'm guessing this is just the tip of the technological iceberg that this school has."

"Indeed. As I was saying earlier, the SA paid for the most thorough and advanced cleaning system that was out at the time in order to keep the building as pristine as possible. It's a sort of mix between chemical and nanite tech that combines to clean away any rust, dust, grime or any particle of matter that would dirty or tarnish the school. It also rebuilds any cracks or damages that it finds along the way. Think of it as a sort of VI-powered cleaning/self-repairing system that requires very little human supervision."

"Jeez..." Shepard muttered.

Karin shook her head in amusement and continued down the hallway. "Because of this, the school is kept in a state very similar to how it looked when it was first built almost 10 years ago." As they were walking, they took a couple of turns down some other hallways, allowing Shepard to become totally lost, and entered into a smaller version of the main foyer that they had walked into at the entrance of the school. The wall into the area was made of glass as far as she could tell, but it reflected everything back perfectly, which led to reason that it was probably a one-way mirror so that no one could see in, but that people on the inside could see out. And, since her aunt had input a code on the door to the mini-atrium, Shepard figured this was a sort of teachers lounge that students didn't have access too. Once she saw a row of countertops along one wall with a food heater, sink and what she guessed was a fridge, she knew she had assumed correctly.

"Principal Tevos' office is further in the school, but she agreed to come meet us here for introductions and such because it's a bit more comfortable. When you go with her back to her office, me and McKenzie will leave to start our errands. I'll let her know we're here, so take a seat while we're waiting," Karin said.

Shepard's ears perked up when she heard that this Principal Tevos was a 'she', and mentally marked off one of the things she had wondered about the night before. Shepard took the opportunity to ask a little bit more. "So the principal is a she?"

"Oh goodness, I told you that I was going to explain better who the head of the school was this morning, didn't I?" Her aunt's visage was extremely apologetic and slightly embarrassed for having forgotten.

Shepard waved her hands dismissively at the apology. "It's alright, we were in a hurry. Maybe just fill me in real quick before she gets here."

"Principal Tevos has been the head of the school since its founding. She is an asari who was handpicked by the matriarchy to run the school. That may sound odd, since the asari government wouldn't usually become so closely involved with something as menial as a school, but as I mentioned before, this Academy is more than a school, and they wanted to have an excellent representative running it. And since the Normandy is on an asari world, it was easily agreed upon by the other races that an asari would oversee it. All of the other staff members and professors come from the varying races, however, and everything else about the school is as multi-cultural as possible."

Shepard nodded, "That makes a lot of sense. I'm looking forward to seeing who the rest of the teachers are now." While explaining a little bit more about the make-up on the school, her aunt's information also helped her whittle down her questions about the principal to one, but the only way she would be able to find out about Principal Tevos' temperament was by meeting the woman herself.

Karin quickly went back to her omni-tool and wrote up a message to let Tevos know that they were waiting for her.

Shepard sat down on one of the couches that looked the most comfortable and motioned for her sister to sit with her. However, McKenzie decided to sit _on _her rather than _next _toher, and Shepard 'oofed' as her sister basically leaped into her lap and jarringly landed on her legs. "Aww, jeez, Kenzie-bear, you almost flattened me!" she dramatically exclaimed to her sister, pretending to clutch her leg painfully.

McKenzie giggled and wiggled around on her sister's lap, poking her legs as she did. "You just gotta get tougher," she teased, and jumped a little more.

"Oh, I gotta get tougher, do I? Well how about this!" Shepard proceeded to attack McKenzie's stomach and tickle her mercilessly.

"Ahhh!" the little girl shrieked, twisting and turning trying to fend off her big sister. "No! No Tickle Monster!" she pleaded while her tummy was assaulted by wicked fingers, and tears of laughter gathered in the corners of her eyes.

"What's that? Did I hear you say I _am_ tough?" Shepard said coyly.

"Yes! Sissy's tough!" McKenzie admitted to her sister, gasping for breath in between laughs, willing to say anything to get the tickling to cease.

"Hmm..." Shepard stopped tickling her sister and pretended to think very hard, stroking her chin in an exaggerated manner like an evil villain. "Alright, I guess I'll accept that," she seemed to grudgingly confess. "But don't you forget that the Tickle Monster is tough!" she threatened, trying not to crack a smile. She poked McKenzie's stomach one last time for emphasis.

The younger girl squirmed at the poke, but nodded her head with mock solemnity, fighting back her own grin. 'Tickle Monster' was a game they played a lot, and she knew it was nowhere near the last time that she would mess with her older sister and then get tickled in return. Once her sister dropped the villain act and smiled at her, tapping her nose lightly with her finger, McKenzie proceeded to snuggle into her sister's lap and pull out her omni-tool to play some games while they waited.

McKenzie's device had nowhere near the full features of a true omni-tool, but Shepard had gotten a modified, or rather, had Julia do all the modifying, one for her on her birthday. She uploaded a lot of games on it and gave it very restricted and basic extranet searching and vid watching capabilities. Also, she had keyed it so that the only people who could call or message to her sister's omni were herself and her father. But, as soon as McKenzie had gotten it, the whole birthday fiasco had transpired, and Shepard quickly changed it to where only she could reach her sister. Later she had added in Julia, Tucker and his family, and once they had reached Sanves she had modified it again so that Karin could call as well. It had kept her sister entertained for many hours, and was one of the things that had made the trip from Earth bearable. Her sister was pretty well-behaved, but she was still a six year old, and every now and then it was nice to have something to distract her with.

When McKenzie settle down in her lap, Shepard absentmindedly drummed her fingers along her sister's knees and waited for Principle Tevos to arrive. Little did she know, there was a regal asari standing right in the doorway of the teacher's lounge who, because the doors opened so silently, hadn't been noticed as she watched the whole tickle attack happen. A soft smile played at her lips and she felt that she was going to very much like this new student.

* * *

_A/N - Terra Firma isn't the terrorist group in this story like they are in the game. I just loved the name so much I stole it for the skyball team name. Also, I know I have this story time-stamped at 2187, and in the game Shepard was made a SpecTRe in 2183, so, you ask, how could the school be ten years old? Bahahaha cuz it's an AU. Yay for creative license._

_Oh and sorry for the one day late update, I was driving all day yesterday and didn't get wifi until this afternoon. Enjoy!_


	19. Now That Wasn't So Hard

Chapter 19 - Now That Wasn't So Hard

The sound of a throat clearing drew the attention of three people and heads turned in the direction of the sound.

_Wow... _was the only thought on Shepard's mind when her eyes fell upon the person standing in the doorway of the teacher's lounge, because the figure before her looked like she belonged in a vid. She wore a beautiful, red, form-fitting dress that wrapped around her elegant neck and flowed down her body until it reached to brush just above the floor. As far as Shepard could tell (from what very little she knew of asari culture), it was a somewhat typical asari garb.

But it wasn't the dress that drew Shepard's gaze, though it was a fine piece of clothing. No, what pulled her focus was the regality with which the woman's face, and whole body for that matter, was held. Her shoulders where held back in perfect posture and her spine was straight and erect. She stood proud, and Shepard had never seen anyone just look more _asari_ than the woman in front of her did. She was a perfect specimen of her race, and based on appearance alone, Shepard could start to understand why the asari matriarchy had chosen her to represent them at the school.

Following the poise of her upper body, Shepard's eyes were then drawn to her face, which was the most commanding part of her anatomy. Her snow white facial tattoos stood in stark contrast to the soft blue hue of her skin, and were probably the most impressive markings she had ever seen on asari, vids included. They flowed down from her crests and framed piercing green eyes that, while collected and reserved, held a light of kindness and generosity. _She's-_

"You're pretty!"

Shepard froze, and terror mixed with horror gripped her until she realized that the voice hadn't come from her lips. She had been so wrapped up in her thoughts about the asari that she had feared what she had been thinking had slipped out verbally. She breathed a sigh of relief that she hadn't been the one to blurt out the words, but was very willing to agree with her little sister.

The woman chuckled quietly and smiled kindly at the complement. "Why thank you, child, that is very sweet of you."

Karin laughed at her niece and grinned before addressing the newcomer herself. "Ah, Thea! Thank you for coming to meet us," she said warmly, rising to her feet to greet the asari.

"Of course, it is my pleasure," Tevos responded, stepping towards the trio, and Shepard noted that she even walked serenely. Distracted by the principal's gait, she tuned back in quickly though when she realized she was being spoken to. "- am Principal Tevos, you must be Sydney?" she heard, and a hand was extended towards her.

That traitorous little shaft of ice shot through her body at the name, but she clamped down on the reflex to shiver and willed herself to ignore it. She did a good job of it, and the only outward sign of her discomfort and internal struggle came in the form of slightly gritted teeth and her eyes blinking rapidly a few times. Shepard hoped that Tevos hadn't caught any part of her expression, and stuck a smile on her face, reaching to return the handshake.

She was slightly startled when, instead of grasping her hand, Principal Tevos laid her own palm flat against Shepard's and held it there for a few moments, and she was distracted enough that she didn't respond to the introduction. She was utterly confused by the foreign gesture and wasn't quite sure what to do. _Duh, idiot, why would you assume they shake hands like humans do?_ She would have felt extremely embarrassed by her lack of knowledge, but it was dampened somewhat when she saw the asari smile at her.

"Your first lesson, I think," the principal said with traces of humor in her voice and a smile, the striking white stripe on her lip curling as well. "But you need not worry, I would not have expected you to know of this form of greeting anyway. For the most part it is only used among our race, and even then mostly by the older generations."

"Oh! Well, alright," Shepard smiled in return and her embarrassment rapidly disappeared while the asari spoke and reassured her. "So, it would be weird if I greeted other kids at school this way?" she joked shyly.

Quiet laughter slipped out of Tevos' lips at the statement and she nodded her head with mirth. "No, that will not be required of you," she replied, and then turned her attention to Karin, who was smiling at the exchange. "Your niece is every charming, Karin, I feel she will fit in nicely."

"I agree, and thank you again for meeting with us before she starts tomorrow."

Tevos waved away the gratitude. "It is of no consequence. We want students to feel welcome here, and it is my job to see that she transitions well." She turned to look at the new student, "Are there any questions you have for your aunt before we proceed with our meeting?"

"Uh, no, I don't think so. I'll just message you and let you know when we're done. That sound alright?" Shepard asked her aunt.

"Perfect. Me and your sister will run errands and come get you when you've finished. We'll see you in a little while." Karin walked over and gave her eldest niece a quick hug and took McKenzie's hand, who had been openly staring at her sister's new principal during the entire conversation.

As she was pulled towards the door, McKenzie snapped out of her daze to tell her sister goodbye. "Bye, sissy! Have fun with the pretty lady!" and then she turned and trotted alongside their aunt out of the teacher's lounge.

Shepard's cheeks glowed with a faint blush at McKenzie's words, and she looked apologetically at the older asari. "Ah... Sorry about that. For my sister, no one is a stranger."

Tevos smiled at the young human. "Oh, it is quite alright, I find it quite adorable and charming," she reassured. "It is refreshing to be around someone so young when I am perpetually surrounded by the antics of "teenagers"," she said, using air quotes when she spoke the human term for the adolescent age.

Shepard grinned sheepishly at that. "Yeah... I guess we can be pretty stupid."

"Hmm, I would not say stupid, just fearless at reckless at times."

Shepard shrugged, "True."

"However, that is what I signed up for, is it not?" Tevos smiled warmly. "If you have no more immediate queries, shall we begin?" she asked and gestured towards the door Shepard's aunt and sister had just left through.

"Aside from what classes I'll take, I don't have any right now," Shepard said. "I, um, might have some that I'll randomly think of later, though. Can I ask then?"

"Of course! Please feel free to ask any questions that you may have and I will try and answer them to the best of my knowledge," the principal replied brightly. She then motioned forward with her head and stepped towards the exit. "I think first a quick tour of the school is in order, though I do not expect you to memorize it right away," she commented as they stepped into the hallway. "I will assign a student to help you navigate your classes tomorrow."

Shepard bobbed her head, "Thank you. And, from what I've seen so far, this school is absolutely beautiful."

"Indeed. It is something we take great pride it at the Normandy and something that the students respect... for the most part," Tevos said, with a slightly exasperated sigh escaping at the end.

"More of the, eh... "teenage" antics, I'm assuming?"

"But of course." She led them down some hallways that all looked identical to Shepard, but eventually they emerged from the locker-lined halls into another large room. The ceiling shot up and expanded into high, metal rafters. There wasn't as much glass in the area as she had seen in some other places in the school, but it was used to line the wall directly to their left with large, polished windows. From what she could see there were multiple doors set into the wall that led out onto a patio area with a railing around it.

On the inside of the room, there were rows and rows of tables and chairs set up throughout the vast space. The tables were many different shapes and sizes, very few in one row being the same as another. On the side opposite the glass wall, an area of the room was raised up as a sort of balcony with stairs leading up to it, and Shepard saw more tables and chairs at the top as well. In the ceiling above the raised floor was a small skylight, and sun was drifting down onto the floor and across the chairs._ Huh... they probably didn't think of it when they designed that area, but please... all it needs is a sign that says "Popular Kids Up Here". I feel like someone should have seen that coming... _Shepard could envision whatever snotty and uppity kid felt like they were above everyone else lording over what she was now certain was a lunch room, with haughty disdain.

"This," Principal Tevos motioned with an outstretched hand, "is the cafeteria. Many of the students, faculty and staff call it the mess, however, since the Academy was named after a ship. Directly across from us, where those closed up windows are, are where you can buy food if you do not bring it from home." She pointed out a section of the wall where it appeared that two large grates were covering up some form of glass. "During Academy hours, the screens light up and students can purchase food. The interface on the left is for those of dextro diets and the one of the right is for levo diets. Within each of those categories you can then search by different species' food, though you are not restricted to your own. I know that many of the asari students thoroughly enjoy the food from Earth, so it really is up to you. All the food comes out further down the wall at those chute openings."

"Wow, that's pretty neat," Shepard marveled. "When Aunt Karin explained the cleaning system you guys have, I was wondering what other crazy stuff would be around here."

Tevos laughed at that. "The cleaning system is rather impressive, is it not? I sometimes think it may have been a bit more than what was strictly necessary, but I am not complaining. Plus, this is a very prestigious institution, and we take great pride in our ability to have state of the art technology and the ability to adapt to the diverse cross-section of students that attend here."

Shepard was only becoming more and more impressed by the school as time went on. She was also wondering if literally every species in the galaxy was represented at the Academy. "How many different races are present in the Normandy?" she asked.

"At the moment, all but the vorcha and the geth," the principal explained. "The vorcha... Well, I believe you may be able to understand the reasons for their absence yourself. Their race is not necessarily known for its intelligence or their behavior in general, and they hardly ever leave Terminus Space. With the geth it is not so much that they do not come here, but the way in which they were created did not allow for the concept of children or young. They may have newer programs that they bring online, but that is not the same as a child. Besides those two, every now and then there is a year when certain races do not have a student representing their species, but that does not happen often."

Shepard digested the new information given to her. The lack of vorcha made plenty sense, and she was very much glad that they would not have to deal with that race, as stereotypical and unfair that gladness may be. What Principal Tevos revealed about the geth was not something she had thought about before, but now that she realized it, it too made sense. "Are there batarians?"

"As of now, yes, though there are very few of them, and they mainly keep to themselves," she said quietly with a sigh. It was unfortunate that the sins of an entire race were projected unfairly onto the students who attended the Academy, but it was something that was done across the galaxy to many batarians. The Hegemony of the batarians was thoroughly detested by most species, and it was not as if the hatred was unfounded or falsely felt, but it upset her greatly that her students suffered for the sins of others. The four-eyed race had partaken in too many evils, however, and it was a simple matter to assume that all batarians agreed and lived by the culture of the Hegemony. And while few and far in between, there were kind and decent batarians in the galaxy, but fear and scorn from others tended to eventually wear down those good-natured people.

Shepard detected the deep sorrow in the few words that the principal had spoken, and knew most likely what the issue was. She made a small promise to herself that if she were to ever run into one of the batarian students, she would try her damned hardest to be kind and polite to them. Not that she would have been aggressive, since it was not in her nature, but she would go out of her way to treat them with respect if she could.

But, Shepard didn't want to dwell much longer on such sad topics and tried to come up with something else to talk about to distract the obviously melancholy principal. "So, uh..." She looked around and tried to find something that she could ask about. On either side of the raised area of the cafeteria she saw more hallways, and figured that was good enough place to start. "Where do those lead?"

Tevos' attention was brought back to the new student and she looked over to where the human girl was motioning. "The furthest from us leads to more classrooms and the gyms for biotic training, and the one closest leads to a few smaller classrooms and a lot of offices. Mine is actually down there as well. I will take you to the gyms first, since I remember talking to your aunt once and from what I gathered you have some minor biotics. Is that correct?"

"Uh, yeah," Shepard replied quietly. Her biotics having come up twice in one day was not something she was used to, and it felt a little odd thinking about them more often than she ever had in the past.

"Well, you will definitely have at least one class period dedicated to training your biotics, so I know you will need to utilize the gyms. Shall we proceed there next?"

"Sure." Shepard followed her new principal as they wove their way through the tables and chairs towards the far hallway. As they walked, Tevos would point out certain classrooms and tell her which classes were taught in which. They passed in a part of the hall and she explained that it headed off towards the area that housed the offices, so it was quicker to reach them that way instead of back tracking all the way to the mess.

After a few more minutes, they entered through some doors that were larger than all the surrounding ones, and Shepard found herself inside something she instantly recognized. _A gym is a gym, I guess, and it doesn't change much from species to species._ The room they were in was very typical for a high school gym on Earth. The main difference was that the padding that surrounded the walls was _much_ thicker than any she had ever seen. The same thick mats that lined the walls were also set up liberally around the floor, more similar to a tumbling or gymnastics set up. But if kids were throwing each other around with biotics, it made a lot of sense.

"There is one other gym like this one further down the hall, and you will be assigned to one of them for your training class. Over there," Shepard looked to where Tevos was pointing, the wall to their left, "is the girls locker room, and the boys is on the opposite wall. While we do want everyone with the ability trained, we are not careless in how we go about it. When you start up your training, you will get body pads that you will use for your class. Those you will store in your locker between training sessions," Tevos explained. "We have staff that cleans them for the students, though, so you do not have to worry about that."

"Well that's nice!" Shepard said happily. "Although, whoever I'm up against, I doubt they'll need their pads much, I'm not very strong."

"You may assume that about yourself, but our instructors are some of the best, and may be able to help you understand and use your biotics in a way that you may never have before. Many of our students are actually much stronger than they believe themselves to be. But, that is to determine later. Let us continue our tour."

-.-.-.-.-

It took a little under another hour to see most of the important places in the school, and then they both retraced their steps back to Tevos' office to take a look at Shepard's schedule that she would be following. Shepard took a seat in front of Tevos' desk, which was made of rich, dark wood, and waited a few moments as the principal sat down and logged onto the terminal in front of her.

"Here we are," she said, looking through her files, "Student schedules." She was quiet for a few moments as she looked over the classes. "Alright, Sydney, it looks like-"

"Um... Could you... ah, call me by my last name...?" Shepard asked quietly, her eyes intent on the floor and refusing to meet the principal's. She felt her cheeks flush in shame and embarrassment once again. It was a weakness that she hated having, but she was stuck with it nonetheless.

"Shepard?"

"Yes, please. And would it be possible to, uh, change it so that when other teacher's see my file they only see my last name?" Shepard glance up quickly and couldn't help herself searching the principal's face to see if she could detect any confusion or questioning. Shepard was pleasantly surprised that while she did see a strange expression on the asari's face, it didn't look like the woman was going to question her or give her grief over her preference in name choice.

"Of course, give me a moment." Tevos typed a few things into the terminal and changed the name in the file. When she was finished she turned back to Shepard. "I have it written now as 'S. Shepard'. Is that alright?"

She felt herself relax somewhat and nodded gratefully at the principal. "That's great, thank you so much. And... I know you're probably wonderi-"

"I am, but it is not my business nor my right to question your choice. You obviously have your reasons for it, and as there is no problem with it in regards to the system, there should be no problem for implementing it," Tevos said firmly.

"Thank you," Shepard said once more, and she hoped the principal was able to hear the gratitude in her voice. This was going to make things a lot easier for her when she started school the next day.

"Of course. Now, for your schedule. Each year you will take a total of seven classes. With the exception of one, all your other classes are yearlong courses. Since you are not only joining in the middle of the school year, but also starting as a Third year, your schedule may be slightly different than the other students for a short while," Tevos began. "I am not sure what all your aunt has already explained to you about the Normandy, so I apologize if I mention anything you have already heard before."

"That's fine, it'll probably help me remember more of it if I hear it a second time anyway."

Tevos nodded and continued. "At the Normandy, students study for six years. However there is an optional seventh year for those who are serious about their education. They take slightly more advanced classes and have their own section of the school so they aren't bothered by the younger students."

_Eww... more school? Who would willingly choose that_, Shepard blanched to herself. She quickly refocused though as to not miss vital information.

"First of all, since this is a multi-species school, we wanted to make sure that all students learned about the other races. For First through Sixth years, each year you will take two classes on the histories and cultures of other species. We have teachers who rotate in and out each half year to teach, and we try to get teachers that can lecture on their own race's lesson. These are the classes that you will have to play the most catch-up on since you missed the first two years. Now, usually we wouldn't do this, as all students have to take the class on their own species' history, but we are changing that slightly for you. Currently this semester, human history is being taught, so instead of attending that class, you will be in the First year class for the batarians and vorcha."

"I know you mentioned that there were a few batarian students, but are there teachers as well?"

"Unfortunately, no, since batarian teachers are very hard to come by and because very few are willing to divulge information about their own culture. There is still very little known about their race's history and as such not very much to teach on, but that is why we paired their lesson with another species who has a shorter curriculum a well."

"The vorcha," Shepard pointed out.

"Yes. This section is taught by one of our asari teachers instead. So, you will be with First years, will that bother you too much?"

"Oh, no way. I have nothing against younger kids, it's fine," she assured the principal.

"Excellent. These next two classes will be another where you are having to double up. Starting with Second years, each year we teach astronomy on a different section of space in the galaxy. We are putting you in two at once, but they are close to each other and similar enough that it shouldn't confuse you. You will take the study of Inner Council Space with the Second years and Outer Council Space with your fellow Third years. Will that be too much for you?"

"No! That actually sounds great!" Hearing this Shepard got very excited. _This_ was something she knew she was going to look forward to. She was fascinated by space and was very happy that they had such in depth classes about every area of the galaxy. Thinking about the history classes as well, if Julia would have been with her she would have been drooling in her seat and reacting very similarly to how Shepard was reacting to the astronomy classes. While it wasn't widely known, especially after her best friend had done a 180 with her life, Julia was still quite interested in studying about the different species of the galaxy. _I have to remember to call her later today and let her know about this. She'll be so jealous!_

"Next, every year you will be required to take some form of science. This is much more flexible than the previous classes I have mentioned and you can choose which section you want to take. For some reason, many Third years always end up taking chemistry, so if that sounds interesting, I could place you in one of the chemistry classes."

Shepard didn't really care one way or another, since science didn't interest her all that much, so she just shrugged and said, "Sure."

Tevos nodded and added the information to her schedule. "All students must also take some form of physical activity, and since you have to take biotics training, that counts as your fitness class. With all of those, you are now signed up for five classes this semester. Most students have two open slots in which to take other classes of their choices, since everyone has four periods taken up by some form of astronomy, history, science and fitness class. I am sorry that you will only get one this year, but hopefully within the next year or two you will be caught up enough to choose more classes."

"Coming in I wasn't even expecting any choice in my classes, so getting to pick one is still a step up from what I thought," Shepar smiled. "Is there a list I can pick from?"

"Yes, I will bring it up and allow you to scroll through and pick one that seems interesting." Tevos took a moment to bring up the list of classes and then turned her terminal to face Shepard. "Look through these until you see something that interests you, and if you have any questions, there are small descriptions about each class."

Shepard leaned forward and carefully searched through the list of subjects. _Wow, there's a lot of variation here. They have classes from basic ship engineering to asari theology. They sure take the diverse culture here seriously._ After looking for a few minutes, she highlighted a class and sat back in her chair.

Turning the terminal back towards herself, Tevos checked the selection and smiled. "Ah, Basic Tech I, that is a very popular class that many students love. I think you will enjoy it very much." She inserted the last class into the schedule and allowed the computer to put all the classes in order so that all the times fit. For almost every class, there were multiple teachers and times, so there were very few problems when students signed up for classes.

The terminal gave a small ping when it was finished and Tevos looked over everything to make sure it was correct. "Well, it seems everything is in order. Would you like me to send you a copy to your omni-tool?"

"Yes, please."

"Very well, give me one moment... There, you should be receiving it now."

A small blip appeared on Shepard's wrist as her omni alerted her that she had a new message. Shepard pulled up her schedule and looked it over herself. Seeing all the classes that they had talked about, she smiled at the principal and nodded to show that she got everything.

With that, Tevos rose. "I do hope I was able to answer all of your questions for you. Please, if you ever have any more, do not hesitate to seek me out and ask, though I suspect you will learn everything there is to know from your fellow students."

Shepard stood up as well and nodded. "I will. And thank you, again, for taking the time to help me like this."

Principle Tevos waved off the thanks, which Shepard was starting to realize she did quite often, and made her way around her desk to the side that Shepard was on. "It is my pleasure. You are not the only student that we have had who has joined us during a school year, so do not worry. You also seem like a very kind and agreeable young woman, and I have no doubt you will fit in wonderfully here at the Normandy."

Shepard smiled and blushed slightly at the compliment, but was flattered all the same. The tour and meeting had done a lot to help shave away some of her fears about the school, and what once seemed like such a dreadful situation was starting to appear much more intriguing. "Well, thank you very much, Principal Tevos, I'm looking forward to tomorrow."

They walked out of the office and headed back towards the entrance of the school. Shepard sent a message to her aunt telling her that her meeting was finished, and shortly she got a response that told her they would be there soon. They walked through the large glass atrium and out the metal front doors onto the walkway.

"Would you like me to wait here while your aunt arrives?" Tevos graciously offered.

"Thank you, but I think I should be fine," Shepard smiled, touched by the offer. "They'll be here pretty soon and I'm sure you're very busy."

Tevos inclined her head, "It would be no trouble, but as you wish. You are a very thoughtful girl, Sy- Shepard," her eyes were apologetic at the slight slip up, "I very much enjoyed our meeting today and I hope I was able to put you at ease about this school. Tomorrow, when you arrive, if you'd come to my office I will have a student there who will help take you around, if you would like."

"Sure! It would be pretty embarrassing to get lost on my first day."

"Very well then. I will see you tomorrow. Have a nice day, Shepard," Tevos said, and then extended her hand.

"Thank you, you too," Shepard replied and tried to return the gesture that she had learned earlier in the day. Principal Tevos surprised her however by grasping her hand and performing the very human handshake. Shepard, much more comfortable around the asari now, smiled, and the principal winked in response. She then watched as Tevos turned and headed back into the building, metal doors opening and closing silently. Looking back out to the parking lot, Shepard made her way over to the edge of the walk way to wait for her aunt. She messed around on her omni until she saw her aunt's skycar floating down towards her, and she stood up as it landed.

The door opened up and she saw McKenzie grinning from the front seat. "You stealing my seat, Kenz?" she teased.

Her sister nodded and stuck her tongue out, but didn't say much else as Shepard climbed in.

"So, how'd it go?" her aunt inquired as soon as she was seated.

"It was great. She showed me all around the school and then we sat down and she explained how my schedule was going to work and all the classes that I was going to be taking."

"So you feel good about tomorrow?" Karin asked.

"Yeah, much better than I was before anyway. I'm still nervous," Shepard confessed, "but it helps that I have a rough map of the school in my head that that I know what to expect, to a degree."

"That's great, I'm glad you feel better." Her aunt then shifted around in her seat to look at Shepard briefly. "I also have a surprise at home waiting for you. It's for your first day of school."

"What! You didn't have to get me anything, Aunt Karin," Shepard protested.

"Nonsense. You are my niece and it's expected that I spoil you," Karin said with a smile and winked. "We'll be home in a few minutes and you'll see it then."

Shepard spent the remaining minutes of the trip back to the house wracking her mind for what kind of surprise Aunt Karin was getting for her. As they reached the house, Shepard noticed another skycar parked in the driveway. Was the surprise a visitor? _But I've only been here a few days, I haven't even met anyone yet._ As their skycar landed right next to the other one and they exited the vehicle, Shepard decided to voice her curiosity. "Aunt Karin, are you expecting company?"

Karin smiled at her niece and shook her head. She reached over and place her arm around Sydney's shoulders and turned the girl towards the skycar. "No, I am not."

"Then who's skycar is this," Shepard puzzled.

"Yours."

"What? But I don't own-" and then Shepard stopped talking as her jaw dropped open and she stared wide-eyed at the skycar. She then turned to her aunt and stared at her... then back at the vehicle. "You- what... no way! Y-you got be a CAR?!" she exclaimed. "I don't- Aunt Karin, this is too much! I- There is no way I can accept this!"

"Oh you can and you will, otherwise it'll just sit here and look pretty," Karin smirked at her niece's complete and utter shock. Then she laughed as Sydney threw herself and wrapped her up in a bone-crushing hug.

"Oh my gosh, this is so amazing! I still don't think you should have done it and I know I don't deserve it, but thank you, thank you, Aunt Karin!" Shepard babbled rapidly.

McKenzie chose that moment to point out that she too had been in on the scheme. "I helped, sissy! I helped too!" the little girl clamored.

Shepard detached herself from her aunt and leaned over to pick her sister up. She didn't do it often, since McKenzie was getting so big, but she figured this was a special occasion. "Of course you did, Kenzie-bear, thank you, too," she told her sister and gave her a kiss on the cheek. McKenzie beamed at the attention and smiled cutely.

Karin grinned at the both of them and put her arm back around Sydney, steering them towards the house. "So, pretty good back-to-school present?"

"Yes! So beyond good!"

* * *

_A/N - First of all, bless Rae D. Magdon and her wonderfulness! She's graciously allowed me to use __**Thea**__ as Tevos' first name in my story. Shameless promoting; if you haven't already, GO READ HER STUFF! Seriously, her talent is amazing and her stories are fantastic! Go! _

_So, a LOT more insight into how the Academy works and what classes Shepard will be taking :) I hope that didn't drag on too long, but I wanted to get it out of the way so no one would be confused before she started attending. Sadly, all this next week I am going to be helping at a camp with kids, and I can guarantee there will be zero writing time, so I tried to write a longer chapter this week for you guys :) It may end up being another two week absence thing, or I might be able to post a couple days after I get back, but I just wanted to give you guys a heads up._

_I'd also like to say again how much I love all of your feedback and how much I truly appreciate it. If any of you are writers you know how wonderful reviews are, and when you guys take time to leave a message, it just absolutely makes my day :) So thank you, thank you!_


	20. There's a First For Everything

Chapter 20 - There's a First For Everything

Shepard's first thought when she woke up was that she was going to throw up. The nerves in her stomach were roiling and her hands were slightly clammy as she groaned and half rolled half stumbled out of her bed. She thought that meeting with Principal Tevos the day before had put to rest all of her nervousness about starting the Academy, but apparently not. All the apprehension she had felt during the days leading up to her first day of school were all coming back to her in full force.

She made her way slowly to the bathroom and tried to take long, deep breathes, bracing her hands against the sink and leaning on it. _I can do this. I can totally do this._ She looked up into the mirror above the sink and realized, thankfully, that she didn't look as bad as she was feeling. _Well, at least I don't feel like crap _and_ look like crap,_ she mused ironically. Shepard quickly splashed some water on her face to try and wake herself up some more before exiting the bathroom back into her room.

She went over to her closet and pulled out the clothes she'd laid out the night before. And maybe it was silly and childish that she had done so, but she felt a lot better having one less thing to worry about on this sort of monumental day. Before she had gone to bed, she had tried to get as much set out and ready for the morning as possible so that she could take her time with waking up and getting ready for the day. She figured it was going to be stressful enough, so why add more to it, like trying to figure out what to wear.

She slipped on a soft, light green shirt and tan shorts, also pulling on her lucky pair of blue socks. Yes, she had a lucky pair of socks, something her friends back home on Earth had made fun of her for all the time. But hey, she wore them whenever her favorite skyball teams played and they almost always won. That kind of luck had to cross over somehow. Plus, she felt like she was going to need all the luck she could get regardless of what kind of luck it was.

She left her room and checked to see if McKenzie was up yet or not by sticking her head in her sister's room. Seeing it empty, she proceeded downstairs into the kitchen where she saw McKenzie sitting at the table eating. "Morning, Kenzie-bear," she greeted her sister, smiling at her.

"Morning, sissy," the younger girl replied between bites.

Looking around, Shepard didn't she their aunt, but before she could start to wonder where she was, Karin breezed in. "Good morning. Did you sleep well?"

"Uh... sure," Shepard chuckled, scratching the back of her neck ruefully. She hadn't really gotten the best night's sleep since she had had trouble falling asleep with the start of school looming.

Karin caught the chuckle and could probably guess why her niece's sleep quality hadn't been the best. She stepped over to Sydney and gave her a quick, reassuring hug before heading towards the fridge to get some food. "I know you're probably very nervous, which is completely understandable, but I know you're going to do great today," she stated firmly. "Principal Tevos said you seemed quite ready and were very good at adapting. I have hardly known her to speak falsely about her students, so I'm inclined to believe her judgment."

Shepard hadn't know that the principal had contacted her aunt after their meeting, but it didn't bother her. From their one meeting, Shepard thought that she was going to get along very well with the principal of the Normandy, and it made her feel somewhat better that someone so high up had confidence in her. "Well, a lot of that was her doing since she was so willing to help me yesterday," she commented.

"Don't down play your own strengths, dear. And don't you have to meet her in her office before school starts? You could thank her again for meeting with you if you think she helped as much as you say," Karin said as she pulled out some bread.

"Yeah, I do. I guess it won't hurt to tell her again," Shepard agreed.

"Do you want me to make you something to eat before you go?"

The thought of food made Shepard's stomach a little more nauseous, but she knew she should probably try to force down a little bit so she could have some energy for the day.

"Yes, please," she said, and sat down at the table with her sister. McKenzie was already eating some toast with what looked like... green jelly?

"Aunt Karin, what's the stuff on Kenzie's bread?" she asked.

Karin chuckled because she could hear the undercurrent of disgust in the question. She'd had the same sort of reaction herself when she'd first seen the food. "It's a jelly made from a fruit that is abundant all over Sanves called malto. You should probably learn to recognize it because it's used in quite a lot of local cuisine. And I know the color may put you off," she said with a laugh, "but it really is rather tasty."

Shepard eyed the goop skeptically, but had to take her aunt's word for it. Plus, McKenzie was eating it like it was no big deal, so maybe it did taste good even if it looked like slimy baby food. "Um, alright. I guess I'll try some..."

Karin was amused by Sydney's reluctance, but made a few more pieces of bread with the malto jelly and sat down to eat with both her nieces. "So, I was thinking of a sort of routine we could get into for the mornings. McKenzie and I will leave a bit earlier than you and I will drop her off at her school before heading to the Academy myself. You can head straight there whenever you need to in the mornings, but this way you won't ever be late taking her to school."

"Are you sure you don't want me to take her? Will you get in trouble if you are late?"

"No, it's fine. There are some other nurses that work there every day, so it's not imperative that I'm there super on time. Plus, part of the perks of being the head of all the medical things at the Normandy is that I can sort of make my own hours."

Shepard nodded and conceded. "Alright, sounds like a plan." She turned to her sister, "You wanna ride with Aunt Chawas to school every day?"

"Yeah!" McKenzie exclaimed excitedly. It's not that she didn't want to ride with her sister, she just wanted to spend time with her aunt.

Shepard smiled at her sister's enthusiasm. She also realized that it would probably be better if her aunt took McKenzie to school because if her sister was ever late or being stubborn about leaving, it wouldn't make her late to school. And since Aunt Karin explained that it wasn't super important for her to get to the Academy exactly on time, it worked out for all of them. "Alright, Kenz. But you have to make sure you're on your best behavior for her, okay?"

"Uh-huh! Promise!" McKenzie nodded vigorously.

"When you get done eating go get ready for school so you can leave when Aunt Chawas needs you to," Shepard told her sister.

"Okay, sissy." McKenzie ate a few more bites of her toast and then dashed off to her room to get ready.

Karin watched the girl run off and then checked her omni-tool for the time. "You may want to leave pretty soon so you can get to Tevos' office early enough so you don't feel rushed," she told Sydney.

Shepard looked at the time herself and agreed. "Okay, sounds good." She finished eating her last bits of bread and then got up. "Thanks for taking Kenz, and if I don't see you to tell you, I hope you have a good day!"

"Thank you, dear. Now go get ready and start your first day!"

-.-.-.-.-

When Shepard was lowering her skycar (_her_ skycar, that was still a rush!) into the parking lot, she had no trouble finding a spot since it was still a bit early for most kids to be arriving. She powered it down, got out, pulled her bag onto her shoulders and locked it before turning around to face the building. She stood still for a few moments just gazing at the Academy and trying to mentally prepare herself for the day. _ I can do this. I can totally do this,_ she repeated to herself. Taking a deep breath, she headed towards the walkway and through the front doors.

She was glad that she had gotten a tour of the school the day before and had the chance to at least partially learn the layout. There were very few people walking around, which she was thankful for, and for the most part she was able to avoid them without drawing any questioning stares since she was walking like she knew where she was going. She was able to navigate the hallways without too much difficulty and very shortly she found herself by the group of offices where she knew Principal Tevos' was. She entered quietly and made her way to the biggest office in the back.

She knocked on the door and waited until it swooshed open quietly. She walked in and was greeted by a smiling Tevos sitting behind her desk. "Shepard! I am so very glad you are here."

The nerves in Shepard's body were eased a little bit more by the friendly greeting from the principal and she walked deeper into the room towards the desk. "I don't know if I can say I'm glad to be here, but I'm definitely here," she joked, trying to get rid of the last feelings of apprehension through humor.

Tevos chuckled quietly at the quip and motioned to the chairs in front of her desk for Shepard to seat herself. When the girl did she figured she'd jump right into things. "Well, I know you are probably nervous, but I do hope there is some excitement mixed in."

"There probably is somewhere... I hope," Shepard said half jokingly.

"See, if you are just your natural charming self and try to view the day positively, I do not think you will have any problems," Tevos said warmly.

"Heh, thank you."

"Of course." Tevos then cleared here throat and accessed Shepard's file on her terminal. "So, yesterday we signed you up for Batarian and Vorcha History, astronomy of Inner Council Space and Outer Council Space, Chemistry, Biotics Training and Basic Tech I. I will send you an updated schedule that has your classes in the order that they will go in throughout the day. It looks like..." Tevos looked over the classes on the terminal to see how the classes had been arranged. "Study of Outer Council Space, or OCS as many students call it, will be your first class of the day. And it actually looks like you will not be the only new person in that class today. We actually just got a new teacher for that class since the previous instructor had to leave suddenly for a family crisis. So, it seems you will both be introducing yourselves to the class today."

"There's strength in numbers I guess," Shepard commented dryly.

Tevos laughed yet again. The human really was a lighthearted and easy going girl. "That is the saying. Anyway, after OCS you will go to Chemistry, then Batarian and Vorcha history. After that is lunch in the mess, which is always halfway through the day after whatever your third class is. For your afternoon classes you have Basic Tech I right after lunch, then study of Inner Council Space (ICS), and Biotics Training as your last class." Tevos looked up after listing the last of the classes to see the girl trying very hard to remember the order of everything. "Do not worry if you could not remember all of those, I will send you a copy of the schedule with their order, room number and teacher right now," she reassure Shepard. She typed a few things out on her terminal and in a few seconds later heard a beep on the girl's omni-tool.

Shepard pulled up her new schedule and quickly looked through everything. She felt much better having her own copy so that she could reference it whenever she needed to. She realized she didn't know where most of her classes were, and began to wonder who was going to show her around. "Yesterday you said someone would be here to help show me where my classes were. Are they still able to come?"

"Of course! I just wanted to get you settled with your classes and speak to you privately one last time instead of having a stranger waiting here when you arrived. Do you have any more question before I call for them?"

Shepard paused and thought through everything. She knew all her classes and their order and she knew when lunch was. Was there anything else she was missing? "Um... I probably should have asked about this yesterday, but does the Normandy have a skyball team?" she asked hesitantly.

"Ah, so you are an athlete as well? Rest assured, we do have a team, and I do believe tryouts are to be in a few weeks time. I do not know all the details, but if you ask your biotics trainer about it, she will have more information for you. If you have more questions about extracurriculars, I suggest talking to different students and teachers to get an idea of what sorts of things go on at the Normandy. I do not know all of the them personally, but I do know there are quite a few if you are interested in anything else other than skyball."

Shepard was ecstatic about the skyball team and that she hadn't missed the tryout period. That bit of knowledge took out another chunk of nerves from inside of her and she was almost starting to get excited about the day. But only almost. She was still quite nervous about meeting all of her teachers and all of the different kids in her classes.

"Any last questions?" Tevos inquired.

"Uh, no, I don't think so. You can call the guide now. First class will start soon, right?" Shepard asked, looking at when OCS started on the schedule.

"You are quite right. Give me a moment to message them and they will be here momentarily."

Shepard sat patiently as Principal Tevos typed a message up on her omni-tool and sent it to whoever was going to be showing her around. Barely thirty seconds after the message was sent, Shepard heard a knock on the door and Tevos pressed a button to open the doors and allow the person entry.

A petite human girl dressed in tight black pants and a long-sleeve black and grey shirt with a hood stepped inside the office and made her way over to the desk. She had beautifully creamy smooth skin with warm brown eyes and an interesting purple stripe that bisected her bottom lip. She walked with an almost joyful bounce in her step and her mouth seemed ready to break into a smile at any moment.

"Shepard, meet Kasumi Goto, she is one of our student aids that helps in the office and she'll help show you around today," Tevos introduced. "Kasumi, this is the new student Shepard I was telling you about."

"Hello," Shepard said a bit shyly with a slightly awkward bob of her head.

"Hey there," Kasumi responded brightly, either obliviously or graciously ignoring the nervousness of the new girl in front of her. "Like Principal T said, I'm Kasumi. I'll show you around today, but don't be afraid to find me again if you ever need me after today."

Kasumi's upbeat and light tone was helping to relax Shepard quickly after her initial freeze up. She nodded again a bit more confidently and smiled at the smaller girl. "Thanks." She then stood up and lifted her backpack onto her shoulders, turning to Principal Tevos again. "And thank you again for all the help so far, I hope I haven't been too much of an inconvenience."

"Shepard, as a now new student of my school, it is my privilege to help you in whatever way I can. You never need to think that you are an inconvenience. It is my dear hope that today and the rest of your time here at the Normandy goes well, and if you ever have any need of me, do not hesitate to ask."

"Aww, Principal T, you're the best," Kasumi piped up after Tevos had finished speaking. She smiled almost cheekily at the principal before turning back to Shepard and winking at the human.

Tevos sighed with amusement having become quite used to Kasumi and her teasing ways. Not that she doubted the sincerity of what the small girl said, but having spent so much time as an aid, Kasumi was very comfortable with the faculty and staff and spoke in a much more informal tone around them than most students. "Thank you, Kasumi. Now, I do believe Shepard has a class she needs to get to."

"But of course. See ya' Principal T!" Kasumi said and then turned and looped her arm through Shepard's and gently dragged her towards the door.

Shepard wasn't expecting the smaller girl to have as much strength as she did and had to swallow a yelp as she was yanked towards the exit. She turned back over her should her look at Tevos. The principal just smiled and waved her hand vaguely in the air in a sort of dismissing motion. "Do not let her drag you around too much, Shepard," she called as the pair of girls exited her office, chuckling at the startled look on Shepard's face. She knew Kasumi had a very dominant personality, but the girl was never overly aggressive and she just came off as slightly over exuberant and a tad eccentric. Most people got used to her quirks quite quickly and she had a feeling that Shepard would be able to handle her just fine.

* * *

_A/N - I'm back! I'm sorry I didn't update last week, but if it's any consolation I had a freaking awesome time at camp. *Cough* not that it was better than updating on here... Anyway! Thank you so much for your patience with me and for those of you still following this story :D _

_This may seem kind of short, but the chapter was getting waaaay too long because I wanted to give you guys so much after being absent, so I split it up. You'll get the second part either later today or tomorrow at the latest! And get excited because next chapter you will see more of Kasumi (which no one guessed as the guide hehe) and meet a few more new characters! (It'll also be in a tad different format, but it'll still be awesome!) See more soon!_


	21. How the Other Side Lives

Chapter 21 - How the Other Side Lives

Liara sat forlornly at the ornate table in her kitchen, blankly staring out of the window into the massive garden at the back of their estate. There were a few workers dotted about who were tending to the foliage and lawn, keeping everything in its nearly perfect condition. She idly wondered what sort of events had shaped their lives and had pushed them to where they currently were. Were they happy being gardeners for her house and her family? Did they aspire to more? Liara gazed at them as they shuffled about the garden and allowed her thoughts to drift anywhere except to the knowledge of what was making her depressed.

She wouldn't have minded skipping school today so that she could spend all day at home, but her mother had told her absolutely not. _"We cannot ignore the responsibilities in our lives just because some things make us upset." She is acting as though missing one day of classes would be the end of the world..._ Liara huffed internally. What would the harm be in missing one day? It's not like Liara made a habit of skipping school at the Academy on a regular basis. She actually had a very good attendance record and only ever missed if she was extremely ill. She was in no danger of getting in trouble if she missed school, so she was put out with her mother for not allowing her to stay home.

The reason she wanted to skip school so badly and stay home was that her father was leaving... Again. It was not something that happened often enough to have a regular schedule or time, but it occurred often enough that Liara was used to it. Whenever her father had to leave, it was for months on end, and Liara always missed her bitterly in those days. She wouldn't exactly call Aethyta an absent parent, but there were many gaps in her life where her father hadn't been there.

It could have been quite easy for Liara to blame Aethyta and dump all of her anger on her father, which is something she had done when she was younger, but she understood her father's position and its importance. But understanding never did anything to dampen the sadness she always felt when her father had to leave for extended periods of time.

Aethyta was a Lieutenant Commander in the asari military and the overseer for the commandos in the entire cluster. Many who didn't know Aethyta's past found it odd that she lived on Sanves instead of Thessia, since both were in the Athena Nebula and it would have been more prudent to live on the homeworld, but there was a good reason for it. Shortly before Liara had been born, her father had angered many higher-ups in the Matriarchy on Thessia with her ideas. As Liara understood it, it wasn't the ideas necessarily that upset the matriarchs but the... way Aethyta had gone about it. Liara supposed she was used to her father's particular brand of speech and personality, but she could see how it would seem rather grating and crude in political settings.

At the time, Aethyta had only been the regional head for the military on Thessia, and as such had lived there. But her radical ideas for the maidens of their race and the direction of their species tromped on many matriarchal toes and she had disrespected and insulted many powerful asari in her proclamation of these ideas. If her father had been bonded to anyone of lesser rank that Matriarch Benezia T'Soni, she most likely would have been stripped of her rank and exiled from Thessia. And, even with her bondmate's influence and connections, one of the two had still happened.

Benezia had told the matriarchs, to their great disapproval, that she would not forsake Aethyta, and that anything they did to her bondmate they would have to do to her. This ultimatum had deterred much of Aethyta's punishment since Benezia was so well loved and respected, but her sphere of influence could only do so much. The verdict had still been that Aethyta was banished from Thessia. They wanted to exile her from the cluster completely, but that had been when Benezia had dropped another metaphorical bomb on them.

She informed them that she was going to have a daughter, Aethyta's daughter, and that she refused to live on a non-asari world to raise her baby. To say the Matriarchy had been shocked would have been an understatement. Many were beyond livid, and a few less than tactful matriarchs had spewed vile insults about the T'Soni name and called Benezia a disgrace. But, even if they had voiced overtly what many thought covertly, that sort of behavior was not acceptable for asari of their age and rank. Those that had voiced the loudest protests were quietly and subtly removed from the Matriarchy and replaced with more even-tempered asari. It didn't deter those few from continuing to bad mouth the T'Soni house, but they were at least in less influential positions when they did so.

Somehow Benezia had convinced the Matriarchy to allow her and Aethyta to remain on Thessia until their daughter was born, promising that after the birth they would relocate. And, even those that disapproved the most strongly with Benezia's choice to not only have a pureblood daughter, but with Aethyta, of all people, grudgingly agreed that it would have been beyond cruel punishment to have to raise a daughter of Thessia, especially one who would be born to such an influential and beloved mother such as Benezia, on a non-asari world when the choice wasn't even hers.

It was then that the world of Sanves had been chosen for Benezia and Aethyta's relocation. The colony had been one of the first that had been founded when asari had unlocked interstellar flight. Since its founding in 544 BCE, it had grown rapidly and steadily, and many asari that didn't enjoy the immensity of things on Thessia chose the quieter life on Sanves to live in. It was also much more diverse than Thessia in that it served as a sort of compromise planet for other species to live on, including those that had bonded to asari and didn't want to live on Thessia.

If an asari did not relocate to the planet of their bondmate and the bondmate chose to live in asari culture, Sanves and planets similar to it, like Illium, served the purpose of being an asari world, but without the overpower presence that a homeworld would have. While Thessia was not closed to those of other species, it intimidated many. The same could be said for Earth, Palaven, Sur'Kesh and all the rest, because the population of most homeworlds was almost exclusively made up of its native species. Many found that being immersed in an alien culture so fully without any sort of link to their own culture was quite frightening, and so the colony worlds of all of the species were where many different species couples chose to settle in. Not everyone functioned that way, some enjoying living in their significant other's culture so fully, but it was a way of life that helped out many couples.

So, Liara's parents had moved to Sanves after her birth and settled in a large estate near the capital. Her mother's reputation preceded her and she quickly became the liaison matriarch between Thessia and Sanves. Similarly to Benezia, Aethyta's reputation preceded her as well, but it hadn't been in a negative way like the pair was thinking it would have been. The leaders on Sanves were much more accepting of her personality quirks and in a few short years, she had quickly risen through the ranks of the commandos and quite soon became elevated to basically the same position that she had held while she had lived on Thessia. She became the regional head of the commandos of all of Sanves and helped to train new and incoming huntresses and commandos.

Since the presence of the Matriarchy was not so direct on Sanves like it was on Thessia, many in the local command had had no real problem with Aethyta's gruff personality. Life was more laid back and less proper in the colonies, and she hadn't offended nearly as many people with her crass attitude and crude humor. Then, in a sort of freak coincidence, a high ranking captain from Asari High Command had been on Sanves during one of Aethyta's training sessions. She had watched when Aethyta had been drilling a group of promising young huntresses, and she had been highly impressed with how Aethyta commanded her subordinates and had recognized the obvious respect that the huntresses had for Aethyta. The captain asked around about who she had been watching, and had been surprised when she had been given Aethyta's name.

It was not common knowledge what had happened to Aethyta, but the captain had heard about the crazy matriarch from the Matriarchy on Thessia. What she was starting to realize, however, was that the stuck up matriarchs back on Thessia had not been completely up front with Asari High Command about Aethyta's true capabilities. All they had been told was that the regional head on Thessia had been an upstart and a trouble maker with a bad attitude. And, since no one knew of Aethyta personally, they had taken the matriarchs words and had been willing to allow them to do whatever they had seen fit.

The captain realized they may have been duped, and, since she was currently touring asari worlds to scope out someone for the position to coordinate all of the commandos in the cluster, she took great vindictive glee with what she had done next.

To the great horror of those back on Thessia, Asari High Command announced that they had found someone for the position of Head Commando for the entire cluster, and promoted Aethyta to Lieutenant Commander with command to oversee the management of the asari commandos and huntresses in the Athena Nebula.

The matriarchs on Thessia had been furious, but there was very little they could do since they had no real authority with the military. Granted, their opinions held great weight and they were involved with many decision that happened within the military, but it was technically in an advisory capacity, so they could do next to nothing to refute the decision. Being stonewalled in such a way was quite unpleasant and distinctly embarrassing, but they did take satisfaction in one thing though, and that was that Aethyta was still exiled from Thessia, so she could not relocate there. Before they were allowed to get too smug, however, High Command reminded them that Aethyta had to be able to visit Thessia and interact with the military on the homeworld. Grudgingly the Matriarchy conceded that point, but made their displeasure known and held firm that they would not allow the newly promoted Aethyta to live on the planet.

So, every few years, Aethyta travelled to Thessia for a few months and performed her duties there. She also stopped in at any smaller colonies and outposts dotted around the cluster and checked in with them. After a few months, she would return to Sanves and spend a few more weeks touring the different cities on the planet and making sure that everything was as it should be. Sometimes the trips were as short as three months, especially if everything was running smoothly, but more often than not problems arose that she had to deal with and she could end up being gone for upwards of five months. The longest she had ever been gone was nine months, but that had been during the First Conact War with the humans, and nothing as severe as that had ever happened again to keep her away for that long.

When Liara had been younger she couldn't quite understand why her father had been absent so often, and sometimes resented Aethyta for it. But as she grew older, she understood how hard her father had worked to get where she was and she could see how much her father loved her job. When Aethyta would tell her about her ideas for their race, Liara could see the passion and drive in her father's eyes, and she knew that Aethyta felt like she was actually getting to put those things into practice. Once Liara began to discover her own passions and dreams, she realized she couldn't fault her father for having her own.

What she didn't know was that the time away helped keep her father and mother together. It wasn't that they didn't love each other with all of their beings and wouldn't do anything for each other, they were just very different creatures and would have driven themselves mad if they didn't spend time apart every now and then. While they had lived on Thessia, before Liara had been born, the times they spent apart mostly came about whenever they tried to stay in close proximity for more than a few years and a vicious argument would drive them apart. Now, with Aethyta's current position, the few months that they spent separate from each other was perfect, and their daughter never had to see one of them leave in anger because they had been fighting.

So today was the departure day for her father yet again, and even though Liara was used to it and knew it would only be a few months, she was still upset regardless. _I just want to spend as much time with her before she leaves,_ she thought sadly. She sighed heavily as her melancholy swept over her, and was about to glumly start eating the now cold food on her plate when she heard someone laugh coarsely behind her.

"Shit, kid, with your long face and a sigh like that you would think someone died around here. Sorry to disappoint but I still got a few years in me," Aethyta joked.

While Liara spared a moment to allow herself to be exasperated by her father's teasing, most of her was focused on leaping out of her chair and rushing to give her father a hug. "Dad..." she said quietly, as she wrapped her arms around her father's waist and gripped tightly.

"Damn, kid, you trying to suffocate me?" the older asari laughed, but placed her own arms around her daughter's shoulders and held her close. She knew how much Liara hated it when she left, and she only teased her to try and lighten the mood.

Liara did roll her eyes at that one, and once she had gotten in another good squeeze, she pulled back slightly to look up at her father. "Must you leave today? Can you not put it off any longer?" she pleaded, even though she knew what the answer would be.

Aethyta sighed and kissed the top of her daughter's crest, a somewhat uncommon display of affection that she only reserved for her bondmate and daughter. "You know I can't, kiddo. I've already put this one off long enough so that I could make sure you started the year alright, and that as a few months ago. I've already gotten a few calls about some damn idiot commandos who decided to try and be vigilantes on their own. Stupid kids got the shit beat out of them and now the whole troop wants to go get the fucks who did it. Sorry, I know I'm not supposed to talk about work at home." Aethyta sighed and pulled back some more from Liara, looking her in the eyes. "The time will pass before you know it, Little Wing, and I'll be back just as quickly." She didn't often use Benezia's nickname for Liara, but when she did is was because she was feeling especially affectionate.

Liara smiled sadly at her father but nodded her head. "I know... It just always passes so slowly in the beginning. I will miss you dearly," she said quietly, and then got a sneaky thought. "You know... if I stayed home today, we could spend time together before you have to leave this afternoon." She phrased it like the idea had just come to her and she hadn't been moping about it all morning.

"Ha! Nice try, kid, but your ma already warned me about that shit," Aethyta countered. Benezia had told her the day before that Liara had tried to convince her to let her skip school. She was actually somewhat impressed with her daughter's deviousness on that because most of the time Liara never strayed from the straight and narrow, an annoying trait that she shared with her mother. It was an ongoing point of contention for her and Benezia, actually. Aethyta thought Liara needed to cut loose and be a bit more reckless, while Benezia encouraged her more conservative ways. It was never too serious of a disagreement, with Aethyta mostly teasing their shy daughter, but she made a point to try and nurture any and every roguish thoughts Liara had. "Points for sneakiness, though. And you know if you had wanted to skip anything other than school I would have been all for it, but Nezzy would fuck me up if I messed with your schooling."

Liara pouted a bit at having her proposition turned down, but she knew how important education was to her mother. Her father might rebel against her mother in other ways, but school was not one of them. "It was worth trying again." She signed one more time with resignation and went to hug her father one last time before she went to school. "I know I always say this, but please be safe and come back as soon as possible."

Aethyta returned the embrace and leaned down to kiss Liara one more time. "You know I always am, kid. Be good for your ma and I'll be back before you know it." And then she couldn't help messing with her daughter one more time before she left. "Go out and find someone to get your blood pumping. You'll be so busy getting all hot and bothered that you won't even know I'm gone. Your ma says you're way too young to think about fooling around, but shit, kid, your 56 and you haven't even kissed anyone. No daughter of mine is gonna be a prude!"

"Father!" Liara yelped, jumping away from her father and blushing furiously, her cheeks turning dark blue. "I- I have n-no need for t-that! I am perfectly c-content with how things are going!" she sputtered, trying to control her embarrassment. She really should have been used to this kind of teasing by now, but this area of her father's crudeness was one that would always embarrass her.

"And that's exactly why you need a little action, you're stuck in your damn books all the time. Shit, Liara, people can't even tell you're quarter krogan with the way you act."

"Father, you know it does not work that way," Liara argued. Her father was convinced that she should be a hot-blooded, head-butting machine because her grandfather was a krogan.

"Hell yes that's how it works! Just you wait, some pretty thing'll catch your eye while I'm gone and your krogan blood will take right over," Aethyta promised.

"I highly doubt that," Liara sniffed.

"Mark my words, kid, it'll happen."

-.-.-.-.-

"Alenko! I swear, if you're not fucking down here in five minutes I'm leaving your ass!"

"Gahh, Ashely calm down, I'm ready. Jeez!"

"Don't give me that, I'm the girl here and you're the one taking so damn long to get ready."

"Look, I'm done okay?" Kaidan Alenko huffed as he stomped down the stairs. "Quit being such a diva."

"A diva? Hell, no! I'm not the one freaking out because my hair isn't fucking perfect. You spend more time on your hair than _I_ do!" Ashley Williams retorted angrily. Once Kaidan grabbed his stuff they both walked out of his front door and outside to her waiting skycar.

"Hey, being conscious of your appearance is important, you never know when you'll need to look your best," he defended. He really hadn't spent that long getting ready, but they were running late as it was.

"Kaidan, I know you're not gay because I've been your best friend forever, but that was probably one of the gayest things I've ever heard you say. Cut that shit out." Ashley knew that he wasn't gay, he got way too flustered around girls for him to be into guys, but it was something that she teased him mercilessly about. And the only reason she got away with it was because they'd been best friends since they'd been in diapers.

Their families had been a part of an Alliance sponsored group who had wanted to live off-world, but weren't quite ready for rough and tumble human colony life on some back water planet. Ashley's grandfather had been a general who fought in the First Contact War, so most people assumed that her family would have been the very-pro Earth type and would have never left. Her parents were adventurous though, and it was actually because the First Contact War was in their family's past that they wanted to move away. They wanted to prove that they weren't alien haters because General Williams had fought and killed turians, and figured that living out in the galaxy would show that.

And they didn't just sign up to prove a point, Ashley's parents were adventurous souls and the appeal of space was what drew them, but proving the rumors wrong was a bonus. Sanves was an asari planet in asari space, but had no restrictions or prejudices against those from other species. It was chosen for their expedition because very few humans lived there at the time and the SA wanted to spread humanity to all reaches of space. This group was to be sort of unofficial ambassadors for Earth. It wasn't a job, but the families that had been chosen were picked because they were well balanced and stable, and would provide a pleasant picture for how the human race acted.

Many times the only humans that the galaxy heard about were the crazy or violent ones, and many species had false ideas in their heads about what kind of aliens the humans were. The hope was to send out groups of families to prove this image wrong and show the other races that most humans were actually quite civil and sane.

The Alenko's had been part of the same expedition and Ashley's parents had become fast friends with Kaidan's parents. A few years after they had settle on Sanves, Ashley and Kaidan had been born not too far apart, and had grown up at each other's houses and around each other's parents. In a way they each had two sets of parents, calling the other's 'Mom' and 'Dad' as well. Ashley and Kaidan were as close as siblings, and as such, bickered and fought in the same way.

They got along brilliantly, but they often teased each other unapologetically and constantly. Well, Ashley did, Kaidan was mostly too even tempered to rise to his best friend's bait. He was also the much more responsible and level-headed one, which was good, because he balanced out her recklessness and bravado. He shot down almost two-thirds of her hair-brained plans, with the other happening when he just couldn't talk her out of them.

This was basically true for all of their friends at school, too. Once they had both started at the Normandy Academy, the outgoing duo made friends quickly, and the group that they hung out with was always full of crazy ideas. A lot of them joked around and called him 'Pops' because he was sort of the adult of their group, trying to keep them in line and from doing too many stupid things. More often than not, though, they ignored him and he got swept up in their antics.

Ashley threw her bag in the back seat and then climbed into the driver's side. Kaidan put his stuff in the skycar as well and got into the passenger seat. "If I'm late because of you I'm gonna kick your ass. I have too many tardy's in first period and if I get another one I'm getting a detention, and I'm blaming it all on you."

"Please listen to what you just said. _You_ have too many tardys. I didn't make you late to class those other times, that's all on you," Kaidan pointed out. "And actually, more than half of the time if we're late to school, it's because _you_ make us late, not me, so quit complaining." They lived very close to each other and had always ridden to school together. Once they had gotten skycar licenses, they took turns driving each other to school. Kaidan was a few months older than Ashley, so he had driven them exclusively for a while, so when Ashley got her license she began driving them.

She scowled angrily at him for his logic, but couldn't find any way to refute it, since it was mostly true. "Whatever, let's just go."

Kaidan suppressed a smiled at her tone, since 'whatever' was her usual retort when she couldn't think of a better argument to his usually superior logic. "Alright... But you do have to start the car for us to get there."

"Gahh! You're a fucking prick, Kaidan!" she growled, but started up the skycar and lifted it off the ground.

He just laughed loudly at her pissed mood and settled into his seat. She was quite easy to get riled up, and he didn't do it often, but every now and then he got great amusement from it and her angry reactions. But, as agitated as she could get with him sometimes, they were both loyal to each other to a fault, and if anyone else treated the other in a disrespectful way, they would immediately turn on the other person, all teasing forgotten.

They flew in relative silence to the school, Kaidan checking over his homework on his omni to make sure he hadn't forgotten anything (although if he had, it was basically too late to fix it anyway) and Ashley quietly fuming as she drove. When they got to the Normandy, Ashley put the skycar down none too gently. Kaidan knew her anger was mostly just for show, and that she wasn't actually as pissed off as she looked. But, that was part of their fun, allowing themselves to be pushed by the other. Not to say that she wasn't actually irritated with him, because she definitely was, but she wasn't as furious as she pretended to be.

They both got their stuff out of the skycar and hurriedly made their way, along with the rest of the students who were running late, towards the front of the school. Since they were cutting it so close, they had gotten a crappy parking spot and had to walk rather far. At this point they knew they were going to be late, but they still walked quickly so that they wouldn't be any lat_er._

Once they made it inside, Ashley veered off in a different direction since her class was on the opposite side of the school. "See ya' at lunch, I'm giving you a punch in the face," she called over her shoulder with a smirk. It was obvious she was going to be late, so she resigned herself to detention... and busting his ass for it.

"Whatever, you love me!" he yelled to her disappearing form. He smiled ruefully and shook his head as he made his way at an almost jog deeper into the school. He knew that if they hadn't grown up together, he probably never would have been friends with someone like her, but he was very thankful for their friendship. He focused back to where he was going and tried to get there as quickly as possible.

As he approached his classroom, he suddenly remembered that they were getting a new teacher that day, and groaned that he had picked _today_ to be late. _They're going to think I'm a trouble maker on my first day... _Not_ a good first impression, way to go Alenko. _As irritated with himself now as Ashley had been, he got close to the door and it hissed open quietly and he started apologizing as soon as he walked in the room. "I am so sorry I'm late, I..." but he trailed off in the middle of his sentence as his eyes swept up to the front of the room and focused on the two people standing there.

_Holy... Shit..._ At the front was the most beautiful person he had ever seen, and she completely took his breath away.

* * *

_A/N - Sorry this took so long to upload! I still had to do some tweaking, but I had to go bridesmaid dress shopping today (holy crap did that take forever). Oh, and I know you guys want to stab me in the eye right now for that cliffhanger, but... Muahahaha that's all you get. _

_Anyway, I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. A few things about it._

_One, I freaking love Aethyta and I freaking love Benezia, and I freaking love them together, and I knew as soon as this story popped in my head that I was going to have them together. Period. That being said, I tried to come up with valid reasons for why they would be on Sanves and not Thessia, so I incorporated lore from the game and from things Aethyta actually spoke about. (I am crap with military rankings and stuff, so I have no idea what her 'job' would be considered or if the rank I gave her reflects it all, so you military savvy people don't bite my head off)._

_Second, and shorter, I wanted to show Shepard's first day from multiple POV's, and how for some people it's just like any other day (sort of Ashley and Kaidan) or how it's very atypical (Liara). I had a blast writing from different POV's and hopefully captured their characters well. _


	22. New Kid On the Block

Chapter 22 - New Kid On the Block

Kasumi kept up a steady stream of commentary as they walked, not once ceasing since they had left Tevos' office a few minutes before. She spoke a bit about herself, Shepard discovering that Kasumi was 16, like herself, and that she was a Third year as well. She mentioned and pointed out a few things about parts of the school that they passed by, trying to help Shepard remember unique things to make navigating the halls easier. She also pointed to different students as they walked by and quietly told Shepard all sorts of random things about them, sometimes not even including their names and just rambling about them.

It was almost impossible for Shepard to keep up with her gossip, since the petite girl seemed to flit between topics and people extremely quickly. It didn't bother her, though, and she appreciated that Kasumi seemed to be trying to tell her about the going-ons and happenings of the school. The only problem was that Shepard had no idea who any of the people were, seeing as how her aunt, Kasumi and Principal Tevos were the only souls she knew so far at the Academy.

"Hey, uh, Kasumi?"

Kasumi stopped mid-sentence without any hint that the interruption bothered her and turned to look at Shepard. "What's up, Shep? Oh, is it alright if I call you Shep? Shepard's cool and all, but Shep as a nice ring to it. But that doesn't sound like a first name? Is it you're first name? Because if it isn't I didn't catch what it was."

_How does she even think that fast?_ Shepard marveled, trying to keep up with Kasumi's rapid questioning. "Uh, sure, Shep is fine. And... no first name, just Shepard, or uh, Shep, I guess."

"What, like you don't have a first name?" Kasumi asked, baffled. "Is that even possible? I mean, doesn't everyone have a first name? Well, I guess krogan only have one name, since their 'first' name is really their clan name... Wow, so does that mean krogan only have last names, too? Oh, were you raised by krogan? That had to be crazy! Although for you it would seem normal I guess, right?"

_...What...?_ Shepard stared at Kasumi for a solid five seconds while she waited for her brain to catch up with the spitfire comments, and it was a wonder she didn't run into anyone or anything since they were still walking forward. How was it even possible for the girl to make such leaps? ...Krogan? She bounced around so quickly that it was extremely difficult for Shepard to see any sort of linear thought pattern or connection between some of the things that came out of Kasumi's mouth. "...What? No. I, uh, wasn't raised by krogan... I grew up on Earth. And I have a first name, I just don't use it," she was finally able to say.

"Oh." The less interesting truth seemed to deflate Kasumi momentarily, but after a shrug she just as quickly got over it. "Well, that's still pretty cool. I've never actually been to Earth before since I was born off world and don't have any extended family to visit there. I've heard it's great, maybe you could tell me about it sometime?"

"Sure...?" Shepard said hesitantly, still having trouble following Kasumi's jump between topics.

"Neat! So why do you have a first name that you don't use? I mean, I know people in the military only go by their last names- Oh, is your family in the military? Is that why you moved to Sanves? But this is an asari world, so there isn't much human military presence here. Oh, but I guess you could have an asari step-parent who's in the military, that would make sense."

_I know; she's insane. Yup, nothing else explains it._ But Shepard just sighed and resigned herself to the fact that even though she had just met Kasumi, she would probably never be able to keep up with the girl. This realization allowed her to speak a lot more confidently because she wasn't trying to understand anymore, and just took the wacky questions at face value and answered them as straight forward as possible. "No, I had two human parents, neither of which were in the military, but I moved here to live with my aunt... who is also human. And I just don't like my first name, so I go by my last name."

"That's cool," Kasumi said with a smile, and then seemed to realize that she had a job to do, namely helping Shepard find her classes. And just like that she dropped the subject of Shepard's first name, origin and background and started talking about the class. "So, Outer Council Space is your first class, yeah?" she asked, and continued after she got a confirmation nod. "Great! I'm actually in that class too, so we'll be able to walk there together. But don't worry, even if we don't have the same classes after this one, I'll be able to walk you to all of yours. I'm able to get out of mine early to make sure that I'll be outside of your rooms in order to take you to all of your classes today. And you can sit with me at lunch if you want, but if you'd rather you can strike out on your own in the mess. I'll still take you to class after lunch though."

Shepard wasn't sure just then what she wanted to do for lunch, debating whether or not she would be able to handle sitting next to Kasumi for an uninterrupted hour, so she decided she'd play it by ear. "Thanks, I'll let you know after my third class when we meet up."

"Sound good," the smaller girl nodded. "Alright, so we have a new teacher in OCS today, which I'm sure Principal T told you. I know who it is, but I hang out in the faculty offices so I know a bunch of stuff that most students don't know. Wanna hint or do you want it to be a surprise?" she asked mischievously, like it was a big secret.

_Why in the world would it matter? It's just a teacher... Right, not questioning her brain anymore._ Shepard sighed, but humored Kasumi since she was obviously excited about the fact that she knew something and other people didn't, even though Shepard was beginning to realize that it didn't take a lot for Kasumi to get excited. "We'll go with surprise, I guess."

Kasumi rubbed her palms together like she was conspiring some nefarious plan and smiled. "Secret it is, then," she chuckled.

_At least she can make the most mundane and unimportant things interesting, I guess. She'll never be bored with life,_ Shepard concluded, which made her realize that Kasumi's antics might just be done on purpose. The girl allowed herself to get excited over little things and took everything with a grain of salt. _Huh... maybe she's not so crazy after all._

They travelled in, dare she say it, relative silence for the last few moments of their walk, although it was maybe a half a minute journey at most. They still had a few minutes before first period was going to start, so it seemed that Shepard would get a chance to meet the new teacher before all the rest of her classmates. They approached the door and it zipped open quietly with only a faint hiss.

The room wasn't overly large, and had a few rows of desks facing the front of the room, which had a very large vid screen on prominent display. _I guess if we're looking at the make-up of Council Space, a detailed and high res screen would be a necessity, _Shepard figured. On the far wall nearer to the front was a much larger desk than the ones that made up the rows in the middle of the room. It was a very basic teacher's desk made of faintly gleaming metal and had a glowing terminal off to one side. There were a few datapads strewn across it and one picture frame. The desk was also occupied by someone that Shepard assumed was the teacher, but wasn't quite sure because she looked so young. Moments later, though, Kasumi proved her correct when she openly and familiarly greeted the woman sitting behind the desk.

"Hi, Ms. Porter! How are you settling in?" Kasumi called out brightly.

The woman at the desk, Ms. Porter apparently, looked up at the mention of her name. She had a smallish, heart shaped face with a healthy tanned complexion that was striking against the beautiful locks of strawberry blond hair that flowed down to just above her shoulders. Her eyes were a warm brown and seemed kind, reminding Shepard a little bit of McKenzie's eyes. The woman also had a small but very straight nose that seemed to fit perfectly on her face. Her lips were slightly thin, but it didn't give her mouth a pursed look like it did to some people.

But her lip size lost all real meaning when she smiled, because she had a dazzling smile with gleaming white teeth that also stood out brightly against her tan skin. When she saw who it was who had said her name, said smile broke out on her face and also revealed slight dimples on both of her cheeks. Kasumi was one of the few students whom she had met before starting today, as she had seen and interacted with the girl many times in the office when she'd been meeting with Thea to sort out her teaching position. "Hello, Kasumi, I'm doing just fine," she said, rising from her seat and coming around her desk to stand in front of the two girls.

"Good, good. Well, I'm sure Principal T told you already, but this," Kasumi said, motioning to her left, "is Shepard. She's a new student starting here and has your class first thing in the mornings."

"Oh yes! Thea messaged me a few days ago to let me know that I'd have a new student on the day I started. Although, all of the students in my classes are going to be new to me today, so I guess we'll get to introduce ourselves together, huh?" she said humorously. "Well, I'm Blake Porter; Ms. Porter or Ms. P, whichever you prefer. It's very nice to meet you Shepard," she smiled, reaching out to shake Shepard's hand.

"Yes, ma'am," Shepard nodded, returning the hand shake. "It's nice to meet you, too, Ms. Porter."

"Well, welcome to my class, Miss Shepard," Blake said warmly. She then turned and looked at Kasumi. "So, I know Shepard here will be in my class, but do I also have the misfortune of having you on my attendance roll, Miss Goto?" the new teacher joked, knowing Kasumi well enough to tease her.

"You wound me, Ms. P," Kasumi pretended to sigh loudly, clutching her heart dramatically like she had been stabbed. "And here I was looking forward to getting to be in your presence every morning."

"Oh, I do believe you'll live, my dear," Ms. Porter laughed. Her laugh was melodious and light and soothing. Shepard was becoming more and more glad that this was her first class of the day, because if she'd had some cranky, hard-ass teacher first, she was sure it would have ruined the start of every day. Ms. Porter seemed like a genuinely kind person and Shepard hoped that she was able to keep that disposition, because it always seemed like new teachers started out nice, but once they had to deal with the insanity of teenager for too long, they turned much more hard and strict like their older counterparts.

A light, sing song tone rang out from somewhere and interrupted Shepard's thoughts. She looked up and around confusedly trying to figure out where it came from and what it meant. She guessed that it was probably some sort of warning bell, but it wasn't like any she had ever heard. The ones at her school back on Earth had been loud and shrill, squawking unattractively through the loudspeakers of the hallways.

"Was that the...?" Shepard asked hesitantly, trailing off because she figured they'd get her meaning.

"Warning that class is starting soon, yes," Ms. Porter affirmed. "That signifies that there are five minutes until class starts. There will be another one with a slightly different tone that indicates one minute until class, just in case anyone missed the first one." She then looked down at her omni-tool for a moment before looking back up at her two students and said, "I still have a few things that I need to prepare before students starting coming in, so if you wouldn't mind too much, could you sit in one of the front seats, Shepard, so that when I introduce you you won't have to walk all the way to the front from the back of the room?"

"Yeah, sure, that's fine," Shepard said easily. She had sort of figured that most teachers would want to introduce her today, so she had prepared herself for the possibility. She knew it was probably going to be incredibly awkward standing up at the front with everyone staring at her, especially since she'd never been the new kid before (well, except for kindergarten, but then again everyone had been new that day) and didn't know what the other kids' reactions were going to be. At least Ms. Porter seemed nice, and she would also have to be introducing herself to the class, so that might redirect some of the spotlight off of her and onto the new teacher.

She quickly took a seat in one of the front rows and tried to keep her breathing even. She was very grateful when Kasumi chose to sit beside her in the front, even though the girl could have sat anywhere else she wanted. And even though she'd only ever been to school on Earth, she had a feeling that the hatred of the front row was probably something that translated equally across the universe, regardless of species or race.

As kids filtered in, many of them gave her curious glances, since she was obviously someone that they had never seen before, but thankfully no one said anything or came up to talk to her. She was actually having a hard time not staring at them as well since not all of them were human. She'd been trying not to blatantly stare when she'd been walking through the halls earlier with Kasumi, but it had helped that she'd also been listening and focusing on the girl instead of looking around. Now she was getting an uninterrupted chance to examine some of the kids walking into the class.

So far, it had been a pretty even mix. Even though Sanves was an asari world, she had to remind herself that the Normandy pushed diversity, and it's prestigious namesake drew in a wide variety of species, not just asari. She'd seen several asari enter the room first, followed by a few human girls and boys, two salarians and then a couple of turians. She'd never seen a turian before, but realized that the males and females of the race looked a little different. Two of the turians that had walked in had longer crest things, but the third one had very short or nonexistent ones. From what she gathered by their clothing and the brief sound of their voices, the boys were the ones with the long crests and the girl was the one without any.

She was all of a sudden fighting the same urge that she had gotten when she'd woken up that morning, and was extremely glad no one talked to her because she feared that if she opened her mouth to speak to anyone, she might throw up. It wasn't that any of the kids scared her, it was just the strangeness and unfamiliarity of the setting as a whole that was stressing her out. But before she could freak out too much longer, she felt a light pressure on her shoulder and looked up to see Kasumi smiling at her. She gave a weak smile to the girl who had been doing an... odd, but good job at being her guide so far, and got a quick wink and smile in return. "Don't worry about it, Shep, you'll be fine. Most of the kids in this class don't bite, well, except for this krogan guy, but he sits in the back, so don't worry," she finished with a big grin, like everything that had come out of her mouth was totally reassuring.

Which it was... strangely. Kasumi's random information was actually helping because Shepard was able to focus on her words and not the growing amount of kids walking into the classroom. She then heard the different tone that Ms. Porter had mentioned, and knew that there was only one more minute until class started. _Aw, crap... I'm gonna puke..._

But the minute passed and she didn't throw up. A few kids slipped in right before said tone, including a krogan boy, who Shepard assumed was the kid who bit... according to Kasumi, anyway. _But how reliable is that statement, really? 'According to Kasumi'? I feel like anything that precedes or follows that statement could be sketchy..._ Shepard thought. Before she could evaluate that anymore, though, a more Earthen school-like bell sound rang out and all the kids settled into their seats. She figured that was probably the sound that meant that class was officially starting.

That idea was cemented when Ms. Porter stood up from behind her desk and stood at the front of the class. More quickly than Shepard would have thought, although it might have had something to do with the fact that Ms. Porter was new, most of the students quieted instantly and focused on her. She cleared her throat a bit to get the last few kids to stop talking and to look at her and then proceeded to introduce herself quite similarly to how she had with Shepard minutes prior.

"Hello, everyone. I'm Blake Porter, your new Study of OCS teacher. You can call me Ms. Porter or Ms. P, whichever you prefer. I'm sorry that your last teacher got pulled away so abruptly, but I'm very excited to be here and to get to teach at the Normandy. But, before I tell you more about myself, I'd like to make one more introduction." Ms. Porter turned and smiled at Shepard, who took that as her cue to stand up.

She took a deep breath to calm herself and then stood up. _ I can do this. I can do this. Don't throw up, holy crap, please don't throw up_ she chanted as she took the few steps to the front. She turned a bit shakily and stood facing the rest of the class. It was surreal because even though she had seen all of her classmates walk in and knew they were of different species, she still somewhat expected to be looking at a sea of _human_ faces. Instead, turian, asari, salarian and one krogan were mixed in with some humans.

"This is Miss Shepard, and she is a new student who-" The classroom door whooshing open suddenly and a human boy entering loudly caused her to pause her introduction.

"I am so sorry I'm late, I..." the boy started, but then trailed off inexplicably. He sort of stared at the two females at the front, but even though he looked like he was going to say more, no more words were forth coming.

Blake wondered at the strange behavior but needed the boy to sit down and not interrupt her class anymore than he already had. "If you would take a seat, Mister...?"

She saw him swallow and wet his lips to speak before he mumbled out, "Um, Kaidan A-Alenko, ma'am..."

"Alright, Mister Alenko, if you could take a seat please, I was just introducing myself and Miss Shepard here."

He nodded and hurried to an open desk at the back of the room, dropping his bag quickly and slumping into his seat. Blake wondered if he was going to be one to cause trouble, but figured she'd give him the benefit of the doubt first before she came to any final conclusion. She then turned back to the rest of the class to reintroduce Shepard, who, unbeknownst to her, had also noticed the odd behavior from the boy.

"Anyway, this is Miss Shepard, and she will be your new classmate. She has just moved to Sanves and will be a Third year like the rest of you. I hope that you can all make her feel welcome." She debated asking Shepard if she wanted to say anything, but figured that the girl was probably nervous enough as it was standing at the front and probably didn't want to have to make an impromptu speech as well. So, instead she quietly told her, "You can have a seat," and then turned back to tell the class a little bit more about herself.

Kaidan listened as Shepard was introduced and his eyes followed her quick walk back to her seat and watched as she sat back down. He'd heard a rumor, no doubt from Kasumi since that girl knew everything, that they were going to be getting a new student, but hadn't heard if they were going to be a boy or a girl. Quite obviously she was a girl, and a very beautiful girl at that.

Her facial features were very striking, not quite angular but very prominent and regal. From his distance he couldn't tell if her irises were quite blue or quite green, but either way her eyes were bright and stood out, drawing his gaze more often than not. Her hair was a deep, warm brown and when she turned around as she sat down, he could see that her hair was thick and long, falling more than halfway down her back.

She was definitely beautiful, actually gorgeous, but his eyes couldn't stay away from the woman standing at the front of the room, and he let himself refocus completely on her. She had made him speechless when he'd walked in, and he was pretty confident that he'd made a fool of himself. He unashamedly stared at her as she talked and drank in everything about her. She was quite tall, although she did have heels on, which added a few inches. Her skin was basically flawless and seemed to glow with her tan. Her short hair was curled slightly and framed her face perfectly, and Kaidan felt and odd urge to smell her locks, because something that looked so beautiful had to smell good also, right?

And the only reason that he was actually able to listen to what she was saying at all, since it was hard not focus solely on her lips as the words spilled out, was because she was talking and revealing more about herself, and he realized that he wanted to know as much as he could about her. Otherwise, he probably would have just tuned out her words and stared, and as it was he was having a hard time keeping his eyes on her face.

He had been doing marginally well in this class before, but he made a vow that he was going to be the best student in this class. _I have to see more of that smile and I want to be the one to put it there._

* * *

_A/N - Oh gotcha. Some of you guessed it and some of you didn't, but I hope I didn't disappoint either way. _

_I'd also like to say that this chapter breaks the 100,000 word mark for this story. I never imagined I'd get all the awesome feedback from this or how much people would respond to it, so thank you again for all of you who have reviewed, read and followed/favorite'd this story. It has spurred me on to write better for you guys and I hope you continue to enjoy it :D_

_ps. And don't hurt your brain too much trying to guess who the students were in her class, because they weren't anyone important or specific. I just picked random numbers, genders and races for the kids walking in. You'll know if I'm introducing a character worth noting._

_And Kasumi was so fun to write, because I feel like she totally would have been that one kid at school who knew everything and everyone and that basically everybody liked. _


	23. In a Sea of Strangers

Chapter 23 - In a Sea of Strangers

Class was already ten minutes in but Ashley was still pretty pissed. She had been late to class and she had gotten a detention... and now she _had_ to punch Kaidan in the face. _Where should I hit him? Maybe in his stupid jaw..._ she fumed silently to herself.

Her math teacher was droning on and on about some formula but Ashley was only half paying attention, focusing more on her contemplation of where to punch her idiot best friend. She was only half serious... or maybe seventy five percent serious, but she was at least going to chew him out. She was in the middle of envisioning the punch when her omni-tool vibrated, and she was very glad she'd gotten Kasumi to mod it for her so that it wouldn't make noises.

She sent a quick glance at the teacher to make sure they were still facing away from her before she stealthily checked her omni. The message was from Kaidan and she was tempted to just ignore it because it was probably just him whining about being late and driveling to her in order to placate her anger. She sat there for a minute with her finger hovering over the 'read' button before she huffed with annoyance and opened the message.

_*Ash, new OCS teacher is HOT!*_

Her first thought after reading the message was that someone had taken or hacked Kaidan's omni-tool and sent the message. It was very unlike him to talk like that about any girl, let alone a teacher. _Either she's really hot or he let his omni get messed with_. Whichever it was, she knew she was going to have a lot of fun teasing him about it. And she knew how to figure out if Kaidan had actually sent the message or if someone else had.

_*Well don't cream your pants, Alenko, that'd be a bad first impression.*_

She smirked as she typed it out and had to suppress a chuckle when she sent it. If it really was Kaidan, he would have a hard time not blushing and would send back an extremely aggravated message. She could just see Kaidan reading the message in class sputtering and blushing a bright red. She chuckled to herself before turning back to the teacher and went back to pretending to pay attention, waiting to see how her message would be taken.

Sure enough, her omni vibrated again, letting her know that someone had messaged her back.

_*ASH! WHAT THE HELL?*_

Oh yeah, it was Kaidan alright. _Shit, I'm going to have a field day with this,_ she smirked sardonically to herself. If Kaidan had actually thought about how much crap she would give him for admitting to her that he was hot for teacher, he probably wouldn't have told her. He probably sent the message purely out of habit because they basically told each other about everything, but it was going to result in his merciless torment now. His brain might have also been addled by hormones as well, but regardless of the reason, she was going to capitalize on this new development and give him hell for it.

She was having a hard time not cracking a smile and a laugh at the whole situation, but didn't let it escape because laughing in the middle of math would have been quite out of place. For the next few minutes she teased Kaidan mercilessly, cracking jokes about wet dreams in class and being teacher's pet... literally. She could just imagine him fidgeting uncomfortably in his seat while trying to pay attention in class, because knowing him, he was now going to try and impress the lady.

_*You're the worst, Williams. Oh, and you know the new student Kasumi was talking about? They're a girl.*_

She laughed at his halfhearted attempt at changing the subject, but lucky for him she was slightly interested in the new kid. She decided to take the bait and to stop tormenting him... for now. She knew she'd be able to milk this for all it was worth later on.

_*So is she hot too? You're on a role so might as well tap that too.*_

_*I hate you. But... yeah, she's cute,* _he wrote back.

_*Oh, so only teacher lady can be hot, you're demoting all other females to 'cute' now?* _ she taunted him. _Damn, he makes it so easy._

_*I'm not even touching that comment. Her name's Shepard, didn't hear her first name.*_

_*Oh, but I'm sure you want to touch her. Start a harem, Alenko.*_

_*Williams, shut your damn mouth. Why don't you make friends with her if she's so interesting, maybe you can finally hang out with your own gender for a change instead of serial dating your way through the male population.*_

Ashley could just imagine the smug look on his face as he messaged her that, thinking that he had gotten a hit in on her. So what that she hung out with mostly guys? You could flirt and have a little fun with guys whereas girls were just boring as shit. It also wasn't her fault that most of their friends were guys. She sometimes did stuff with Kasumi, though she could only handle that girl in small doses or else she would punch her hyperactive face in. It didn't help that most of the 'girls' at the school were asari, even though they technically weren't even female. There weren't that many human girls to actually hang out with, and the few that did go to school at the Normandy were twittery little bitches. So... maybe she would see what this new chick was about. If she wasn't a total air-head maybe they could be friends... maybe.

So instead of giving Alenko the satisfaction of getting under her skin, she decided to go along with it, which she knew would piss him off even more since he was expecting her to blow up on him.

_*Maybe I will, at least she's not trying to make out with her teacher.*_

_*...screw you.*_

Ashley really had to try and contain her chuckle then. It was very rare that Kaidan could best her when they got to screwing each other, and this was not one of those times. He just didn't have as much dark humor as she did, or wit for that matter, but it never stopped him from trying... and failing. She knew she had won this round and would probably continue winning because she now had some damn awesome material to endlessly pester him with. _He just opened a can of fucking worms with this one. I'm gonna have fun!_

-.-.-.-.-

When the tone that signaled the end of class sounded out, Kaidan thought it was the most beautiful sound in the world. Under normal circumstances it would have been a great class, and especially so since he would have been able to stare at Ms. Porter the whole time, but instead it had been torture. Strictly out of habit he had messaged Ashley about the new teacher, but as soon as his brain had caught up with his actions he had stared in horror at his omni. He had basically signed his own death sentence with the message, giving his best friend as much ammunition as she needed to torment him as much as she wanted.

It had been almost worse that he had expected. He was thankful that Kasumi had modified their omni-tools so that they wouldn't make noises since Ashley blew his up with crude and obscene comments the entire class period. Every time his omni vibrated he had to brace himself for what he was going to read. He chanted, _I hate her, I hate her,_ in his head every time he opened the messages. He thought he had gotten a good hit in when he'd made the comment about serial dating, but that had been a dud.

As he was standing up and putting his datapads in his backpack, he got another message on his omni.

_*Invite her to lunch, lover boy.*_

For a second he thought Ashley meant ask the teacher to lunch, and he was aptly horrified, but then realized that she meant ask the new girl. Kaidan was tempted not to, just to piss Ashley off, but he was slightly curious himself about her and figured she'd appreciate having somewhere to sit on her first day.

Just to annoy Ashley, though, he didn't respond back, letting her wonder if he was going to as ask or not. _Serves her right_, he grumbled. He'd probably blushed more in class today than he'd done the whole year combined. _I hate her,_ he said to himself one more time before looking to the front of the room to find Shepard. He wondered if he'd missed her first name since he'd come in late and resolved to ask her when he offered about lunch.

He made his way to the front as he saw her standing up to leave and lightly tapped her on the shoulder. When she turned around he affirmed what he had thought when he'd first walked in and that was that she was very pretty. "Hey, Shepard, right?" he asked.

"Yup. You're Kaidan?" she said, turning to face him fully.

"Yeah, Kaidan Alenko. Sorry about interrupting earlier, I'm not usually late like that," he apologized with some chagrin. He didn't want her thinking he was a slacker or a trouble maker, since he really wasn't. _That's Ashley's department._

"Oh, it's not a big deal. It happens," she said easily, not making a big deal out of it. Kaidan just nodded, but didn't say anything. She stood there for a moment longer wondering what he wanted. "So..."

"Oh, sorry! Uh, do you have somewhere to sit at lunch yet? Do you want to eat with us?" he quickly said, realizing he had just been awkwardly standing there. Not that his question wasn't awkward either, since it was completely out of nowhere. _Smooth, idiot._

"Not yet, no," she said slowly, "and, uh, who's 'us'?". The request seemed really out of the blue and random, since she'd never even met the guy. Although she figured she should be glad that people were willing to talk to her since it was her first day, she couldn't exactly be picky. Right now it was either this kid Kaidan or Kasumi. At least she knew Kasumi... sort of.

"Me and some of my friends. They're cool, not weird..." _like I am being right now, what is WRONG with me_, he groaned inwardly to himself, becoming more and more thankful that Ashley wasn't there since she would have been ripping into him. Although if she had been there she probably would have done the talking and saved him from his current embarrassment. Thankfully, before he could continuing making an ass out himself, he was saved.

"Oh, hey, Kaidan! How's it going? Saw that you came in late, did Ashley slow you down again? She really needs to work on that. I feel like she's in detention more than she's in class" Kasumi joked from behind him, coming up to lead Shepard to her next class.

"Hey, Kasumi. Ah, no... I made us late this time," he said sheepishly, but very glad Kasumi had interrupted him. "Are you showing Shepard around? Oh, and I didn't catch your first name since I came in late. Don't want to keep using your last name," he said with a laugh when he realized he still hadn't learned her first name.

"Actually, it's just Shepard, so you're fine," she answered.

_And you did it again, stupid._ "O-oh, gotcha," he tried to say with a smile, all while cringing and beating himself up for his stupidity. He just could not catch a break today, it seemed. He took a deep breath and cleared his throat, saying, "Um, so, as I was saying, if you wanted to come eat with us you could. And you're invited too, Kasumi. You haven't eaten with us a while and I'm sure everyone would love to hang out for a bit." He'd thought to invited Kasumi halfway through since it might make the new girl feel a little more secure. She didn't know anybody at all, so the one familiar face she did know might help.

"Wha'd'ya think, Shep? Kaidan and them are pretty fun to hang out with, lunch definitely won't be boring," Kasumi asked excitedly. She enjoyed whenever she hung out with Ashley or Kaidan and figured Shepard would enjoy getting to meet some new people.

Shepard didn't respond at first because she thought Kasumi was going to say more. When she didn't Shepard was surprised since that had to have been the shortest sentence she'd heard Kasumi say. "Uh, sure, sounds good." But what else could she say, really. Saying no would have made her look like a pretentious diva. She didn't think it'd be too bad, though. At least Kasumi would be there, and she knew her, and it'd be nice to meet new people.

"Great! Well, I'll see you in two class periods," Kaidan said quickly, and then booked it out of the room at a speed just short of fleeing. The combination of getting to school late, being distracted by the new teacher and falling prey to his best friend's taunting had left him somewhat flustered, reflecting in his extremely awkward conversation he'd just had with Shepard. He couldn't have gotten away from that room fast enough.

Shepard watched Kaidan leave the room quickly, wondering why he was in such a hurry. _Kind of a weird guy, but he seemed nice enough_. She put him out of her mid and turned to Kasumi. "Where to next, oh guide?" she joked, slightly surprised that she felt confident enough to be silly with Kasumi. She hadn't really known her any longer than these other kids, but she felt comfortable around the upbeat, slightly (in her opinion) insane girl. She would be a little less nervous eating with a lot of strangers if Kasumi was there with her.

"Off to chemistry it looks like. You're definitely going to like this class," Kasumi said with a huge grin as they headed towards the door and out into the hallway. "The teacher is this crazy salarian that loves to do experiments and stuff. One time, he hooked up this huge beaker of acid..."

-.-.-.-.-

Her earlier confidence when she'd been bantering with Kasumi was gone as she stood in one of the entrances to the mess. It was very crowded and loud, with students shouting, laughing and eating in all areas of the large space. Short lines were queued up behind the food vending interfaces with turians and a few quarians in one line and kids from all the other species in the other line.

Shepard was actually surprised at the _lack_ of cliquishness that she was seeing in the room. There was a little bit of it happening, with some groups of kids sitting with only those of their species, but there were only a few tables like that. If one could look past the decidedly alien students, the overall atmosphere of the eating hall felt very familiar to that of an Earthen one.

Before she could stare for much longer, Kasumi tugged on her elbow and dragged her over to a large, round, booth-ish sort of table by the wall with all the windows. Shepard had told Kasumi earlier that she'd brought her own lunch so she wouldn't have to buy any. She was now even more thankful for that since she was intimidated enough as it was without having to navigate through all the tables to get to the vending interfaces.

Shepard pulled her eyes away from the rest of the mess and focused them on where they were walking to. She could see a lot of people sitting at a big table in the corner and swallowed nervously at the sight. This would be the biggest sort of interaction she had had all day since in her previous two classes she'd only been introduced at the front and then sent to sit down. A couple of people had said hi to her or welcomed her to the school, most people just ignoring her, but class was always going on so she hadn't had time to really talk with any students.

As they approached the table she could see Kaidan already seated next to a girl with shoulder-length dark hair, a brown so dark it was almost black. Next to her was a really big guy with thick muscles and short cropped black hair with a little mohawk. She was also pretty sure she saw a tattoo peeking out from under his shirt collar on his neck. To his right was a turian male that had blue markings across his nose, what she figured were cheeks and under his eyes.

Following the curve of the table, Shepard saw a very small quarian girl seated next to the turian. Her suit was predominantly purple and had beautiful patterns stitched into it. Her face mask was almost completely opaque, but she could see their girl's silvery eyes through the visor. A huge krogan with deep red, leathery hide sat beside the quarian in an almost comical size disproportion. Shepard figured the krogan could sneeze and the quarian would be sent flying. The last occupant of the table, sitting to the right of the krogan, was a human boy almost a third the size of the tattooed guy. He was a bit on the thin side and had on a hat that covered his brown hair.

Kaidan was the first to see her as Kasumi walked them over, and waved at the both of them. "Hey guys! Looks like you found us okay," he said with a smile. The dark-haired girl to his right rolled her eyes and sighed heavily. Shepard was taken aback because she thought that the action was aimed towards her sitting with them, but was proven wrong when she opened her mouth.

"Kaidan, we sit here every day and you're talking to _Kasumi_. Of-fucking-course they knew where to find us," she snorted.

Kaidan turned angrily to the girl and glared at her. "Could you just... not? Just try not to be such a smart-ass for five minutes."

"That's like telling Vakarian to not have a stick up his ass," the girl shot a look at the turian, "and that just ain't possible."

The turian didn't even glance towards the two humans as he responded, "Don't bring me into your sibling idiocy, I don't care either way."

By the exchange Shepard was able to see that the dark-haired girl's actions had not been directed towards her and that she just seemed ornery in general. She did wonder at the sibling comment though, since the two humans didn't look that much alike. Shepard figured they were really close in age, though, and so they'd have to be twins in order to be siblings. Kaidan and the girl did both have dark hair, but that was pretty much where the similarities ended.

"Anyway," Kaidan said, clearing his throat after the slight interruption, "I'm glad you decided to sit with us." At that statement the rest of the occupants at the table turned to focus on Shepard and Kasumi. They'd mostly been tuning out Kaidan and Ashley since they argued so often and it was usually about meaningless stuff, so they hadn't listened to what Kaidan had been saying. Now, though, they all turned to look at Shepard who was trying not to fidget under so many eyes.

"H-Hey, guys. I'm Shepard."

* * *

_A/N - Whoop! It's the gang! It's obvious who most of them were so enjoy guessing. I'll name 'em all next chapter. Speaking of which..._

_I'm going to be out of the country all next week up on some itty bitty ranch in the middle of the Honduran mountains so I won't be able to write or post. Then as soon as I get back I'm going back to school and moving into my house and doing a work week, so I can almost guarantee I won't be able to post then either. The following week is then welcome week for all the new freshman, which I have to babysit. SO! Basically real life is going to be insanity. I'm not saying I won't try to write and post, but there is a very high probability that I won't update for up to three weeks. _

_That being said, I'll try, but don't get your hopes up. :(((( What I have planned for next chapter though will hopefully make up for it, since I'm introducing the 'crew' and... THE BAD GUYS! Thank you guys so much for all the feedback and comments, you literally make my day :) And a thank you to those who have just recently started following Growing Pains and to those of you who have followed since the beginning. I appreciate you all so much! (Sorry that got long, I'm done.) _


	24. Make New Friends But Dont Scare Them Off

Chapter 24 - Make New Friends... But Don't Scare Them Off!

"H-Hey, guys. I'm Shepard," she said nervously, trying to control the tremor in her voice.

A mumbled chorus of voices answered her, with the krogan's deep bass, the turian's strange hum and the quarian's suit-muted voice all mixing with the human's to create an interesting greeting. The quarian waved her three-fingered hand and the turian gave her a head nod. She tried to keep a smile on her face and gave them all a half wave back. Kaidan clearing his throat gratefully allowed her to turn her attention back to him.

"Well, you already met me, I'm Kaidan," he said, then nudged the girl next to him.

"Hey, I'm Ashley," she lightly punched Kaidan in the arm, "this idiot's best friend." And where her voice might have seemed a bit intense or intimidating, the smile that she gave Shepard seemed genuine, and it relaxed her a bit.

Catching on to how the introductions were going, the buff, tattooed guy bobbed his head and spoke next. "I'm James Vega, either James or Vega, whatever works for you, _Lola_."

"James, you dumbass, her name is Shepard," Ashely said exasperatedly with an eye roll, "not everyone needs a nickname from you."

"Aw, don't be jealous, _Loca_, you're just upset that someone else gets a nickname from me. You'll always be my crazy white girl," he winked at her, getting a kick out of her huffy expression.

A sigh that sort of buzzed on its way out drew her gaze to the turian sitting next to James, and Shepard could tell from his shaking head that James and Ashley's banter was something quite common. "If you two will quit flirting, we can continue our introductions. I'm Garrus Vakarian, it's very nice to meet you, Shepard." His mandibles flickered and moved as he talked and she wondered if they were part of what made turian voices so unique.

The quarian girl next to him waved at her again as she spoke, "Hi, I'm Tali'Zorah, but everyone just calls me Tali." It was strange not being able to see the small girl's face as she spoke, or to see her lips move as words were formed, but Shepard could at least focus on the bright eyes that she _was_ able to see through the face plate.

After a short pause, the mountain of red next to the quarian spoke gruffly and all the krogan said was, "I'm Wrex," in his deep, gravelly voice. He was obviously not one for small talk, but Shepard didn't take offense to it, since he didn't really look like the sort of person who would chat aimlessly.

The last person to introduce themselves had turned around in their seat to look at her, since the table was round and he was seated almost directly in front of her. "Heya', I'm Joker," he said with a smile, and grabbed the tip of his hat and sort of nodded to her.

When no more voices were forthcoming, she realized that everyone at the table had introduced themselves and that now she and Kasumi were just standing there. "Nice to meet you guys. Uh, Kaidan said we could eat with you today, hope that's okay," she said somewhat nervously, wondering if they were the kind of people that didn't like others invading their group. The quarian girl- Tali's excited voice put her at ease though.

"Of course! We don't often get new students so it's nice to get a chance to meet you," she said, and Shepard could tell she was smiling, even if she couldn't see it. "Have a seat."

There were a couple of chairs between Kaidan and... had he said his name was Joker? She took a seat between them and let Kasumi pick which side of her to sit by. She took a quick glance around the table as she pulled out her food and was pleasantly surprised that they weren't all staring at her like some kids in her classes had been doing. She realized she was new and all, but it was still a little creepy and uncomfortable to have people stare at you.

"So, is Shepard your first or last name? We all sort of use our own names interchangeably as well, so you kind of fit in already." The question came from Ashley, with no hint of sarcasm or attitude, which led Shepard to believe that Ashley wasn't an entirely rude person, she just taunted her close friends. And apparently Kaidan hadn't told any of them that Shepard was her last name or else the question wouldn't have been asked.

"It's my last name, I don't really go by first name at all anymore," Shepard replied, her nerves starting to settle as she spoke, her brain not saying 'ahhh, new people' anymore and allowing her to talk normally. She wondered what Ashley's last name was since she hadn't mentioned it when she'd been introducing herself.

"Why not?" Tali asked.

"Man, Tali, you can't just ask people. Maybe she doesn't want to talk about it with strangers," Joker told Tali.

"O-Oh, you're right, I'm sorry, forget I asked," Tali stammered. Shepard could hear the embaressment in her voice and felt bad that Joker had jumped on her so quickly.

"Hey, it's okay, don't worry about it," Shepard told the quarian, trying to relieve the situation. She tried to think of something else she could talk about in order to move the conversation in another direction. "Um, so, what grades are you guys in? Or, I guess, years? That's what classifications are here, right?"

"Yes, you're correct. Me and James are Fourth years," Garrus told her, patting James' back since the big boy had just taken a large bite of food and couldn't exactly speak for himself. He glared at Garrus since apparently the turian had purposefully spoken as he'd picked up his food. His mandibles and mouth moved in a strange manner that she figured was a smile at his human friend and then pointed to his right at the krogan. "Wrex is the oldest out of us; a Fifth year."

He then casually threw his arm over Tali's shoulders, who Shepard saw stiffen, strangely, and also pointed across the table to Joker. "They're both Second years," he said.

"The babies of our group," Ashley quipped with a laugh.

"Aw, stuff it, Williams, I'm only a year younger than you are. Baby my ass," Joker grumbled. "And Tali's more like a little sister than a baby, you know. A baby couldn't whip all our asses with drones when we piss her off."

"Drones?" Shepard questioned. She'd been following the teasing pretty well until Joker's last comment.

"Tali's a tech genius," Kaidan explained, jumping in to try and stop the taunting from going any farther. "Her and Kasumi are the best in the entire school when it comes to anything related to tech stuff. Tali's designed her own drone programs that can shock the crap out of you. Nothing lethal, but all of us have been on the receiving end at least once of her little Chikktika's zaps."

"Chikktika's the drone," Ashley supplied helpfully, noticing the confusion that still lingered on Shepard's face even after Kaidan's slight ramble.

"Guess I don't want to make you mad then, Tali," Shepard laughed.

"Oh!" Tali squeaked, "I'd never do that to someone I've just met!" Shepard didn't need to see through her mask to figure that she was blushing again. The poor girl seemed to get embarrassed pretty easily. She switched back to the topic they'd been on before Tali's tech skills. "I know Kasumi's a Third year, and Kaidan, I'm guessing you're a Third year as well. What are you, Ashley?"

"Third as well, we're a pretty even mix, although Wrex is by far the oldest. Ancient dinosaur," Ashley said. Shepard wondered if she could go an entire sentence without teasing or ribbing someone.

Wrex just let out a rumbling sigh and looked at her with a bored expression. "59 is nothing for a krogan."

_59?! Holy crap! I guess that's what Aunt Karin and Principal Tevos were talking about when they said the numerical age difference was skewed. That's a little under half of our lifespans._ Shepard tried not to let the shock show on her face. Even though she'd been warned about it, it still was a tough concept to wrap her mind around.

"Speaking of krogan. Wrex, is your clan name like your last name even though it's actually the first part of your name? When I met Shepard and she said she went by her last name it got me wondering about your names. Or do you really only have one name and the clan name is separate?" Kasumi piped up, directing her attention to Wrex as well.

He turned his deep red eyes from Ashley to Kasumi. "Clan name is a clan name. Our names are our names. We don't have 'last names'," he said simply and with little elaboration.

Kasumi obviously wasn't satisfied with such a short answer because she opened her mouth to ask more questions. "But what-"

"Aw, shit, _amigos_," James said suddenly, interrupting Kasumi, and all of their heads turned toward him. His eyes weren't looking at any of them though; he was looking past their table and upwards, towards the raised area of the mess hall that Shepard had seen on her tour of the place. When everyone at the table realized James was looking somewhere else, they all followed his gaze to see what had his attention.

"'Aw, shit' indeed," Ashley said quietly when she had zeroed in on what James had seen.

"Seriously? It's her first day," Joker said with a sigh, shaking his head and rolling his eyes.

Shepard was frantically trying to figure out what they were talking about, because she had a bad feeling that it had something to do with her and that it wasn't a good something. She had no idea what to look for though. All she could see were a bunch of different kids seated at tables that looked exactly the same as the tables on the bottom floor. "What? What is it?" she asked nervously.

Everyone turned back to the table and eyed her with sympathetic looks. "Well..." Kaidan started but didn't finish. The look on his face indicated that he didn't really know what to say.

"Give it to her straight, Pops," he said to Kaidan, and then turned to look at Shepard. "Nympho was giving you the sex eyes, _Lola_."

_...What the hell?_ "Um... W-what?" she stammered.

"Don't freak her out!" Kaidan yelled.

"Hey, at least he's not sugar coating it. We all know that's what it is, you're just too much of a prude to say it out loud," Ashley retorted. "It's her sex eyes, plain and simple."

"Sex... _what_? And who's Nym- whoever?" Shepard said again, starting to get slightly freaked out like Kaidan seemed to think she would. _Why is the word sex and my name even mentioned in the same sentence!?_

"Ah, I think we should back up and explain a little bit better," Tali said quickly, noticing the rising panic on Shepard's face.

"Sorry, we all just call her Nympho," Ashley apologized, belatedly realizing that her comments had probably not been the most helpful at defusing the situation.

"Why do you call her that?" Shepard asked slowly, grateful that Tali had spoken up for her.

"It's short for Nymphomaniac," Ashley explained, picking up the narrative again. "Her real name is Morinth T'Kava, and she's a Fifth year asari who will sleep with anyone, regardless of race or gender."

"Hey, a sex-addict she may be, but she does have _some_ standards," James grudgingly admitted. "Though Ash is right about the any gender, any race part, Morinth does pick and choose; the brightest, the richest, the prettiest."

"The strongest," Joker said with a cough, one of those halfhearted attempts at concealing what you are trying to say but totally saying it so that people will still hear it.

"Don't hate, _hermano_," James defended. Apparently Joker's jibe was directed towards him.

_Lost again..._

Ashley was the one who caught her confusion that time. "Let's just say that James and Morinth have evaluated each other's... techniques," she said smugly, enjoying his discomfort. It was something that they never let him live down.

"Shut it. As I was saying," James said, glaring at Ashley and Joker, "anyone who is gifted in basically any way draws her attention. Brains, athleticism, beauty, the works. So yes, for it me it was my, ahem, body, but that's not all she looks at."

Ashley rolled her eyes at James. "The problem, though, is that the people she sleeps with tend to become..."

"Obsessive?" Garrus supplied, joining the conversation for the first time.

"Yeah, basically. Doesn't always happen, as with our James here, but she has quite a little fan group that would do anything for her. James won't tell, but we all have a hunch as to why they are like that," Ashley said.

"I don't kiss and tell, _Loca_."

"Whatever,_ Don Juan_. Anyway, we think that sleeping with her is so mind blowing that people will do anything to have another chance with her, so they hang on her every word and try to gain her favor," Ashley explained.

"I'm in a class with her and there is absolutely no way that she could be getting as high a grade as she has right now, so I'm pretty sure she has to be sleeping with the teacher. I'm also pretty sure that she's been with someone in administration as well because she's allowed to skip way too much school," Kasumi said helpfully.

"Um... wow," Shepard said, trying to wrap her head around all the information that had just been dumped on her. _So, to sum things up, a sex-crazed asari wants to sleep with me and make me grovel at her feet... Yup, a completely normal first day of school._

"Basically..." Kaidan said awkwardly, because how do you tell someone you just met that on their first day of school they are probably going to have a creepy stalker trying to get in their pants.

"What..." Shepard had to swallow and try again before she could speak, actual fear starting to settle in. "What do I do?"

"We won't let her touch you if you don't want, Shepard," Wrex said protectively. Shepard jerked her head up and looked at him with surprise. She hadn't really pegged him for someone who would care much about someone he had just met, and she was touched that he was willing to help her, a total stranger. From the looks his friends were giving him it surprised them somewhat as well.

"I agree with Big Red, stick with us, _Lola_, and we'll fend her off for ya'," James said with a smile and a wink.

"If she tries to make a move on you, Shepard, I'll deck her. I've wanted to have a reason to punch that bitch in her in her smug little face for _ages_," Ashley said excitedly, comically pounding one fist into her palm.

"Ash, you know if you touch her Vasir would clobber you without a backwards glance," Garrus said dryly.

"I'll punch that bitch out too! The two of them are assholes," Ashley growled angrily.

_Oh goody, someone else to look out for._ "Who is... Vasir?" Shepard asked, getting slightly tired of asking who was who.

Garrus fielded this question. "Tela Vasir is the who's who at the Academy. Ashley would like to tell you that she's the raging queen bitch of the school who lords over everyone here. But, if we're being totally honest, she's not quite up to that level, as much as it loathes me to admit. Yes, she can be quite diabolical at times, and she doesn't take shit from anyone, but unless you directly mess with her, or Morinth, she'll leave you alone... for the most part. Ashley is biased since her and Vasir had a not so lovely spat one time that left Ash the sore and obvious loser-"

"Hey!"

"-But unless you piss her off she'll leave you alone," Garrus continued, ignoring Ashley's outburst completely. "Outright bullying is something that the teachers pay very close attention to here because of the conglomeration of races and species that attend here. There is very little tolerance for racial slurs, hating on those from another species, etc. Tevos punishes those harshly who are caught bullying another student. So Vasir is very careful about how and where she messes with people."

"Thank you, oh ye of great wisom," Ashley said darkly, scowling at him, obviously still angry about his reference to her encounter with Vasir. Garrus just smirked at her and went back to eating. "And she's also not as tame as Garrus is trying to make her out to be," Ashley countered. "Along with Morinth, she has a loyal group of cronies-"

"'Cronies'? Jeez, Ash, they aren't villains," Kaidan said experatedly.

"Aren't they? A loyal group of _friends_," a dirty look at Kaidan, "who enjoy tormenting other people just as much as her. Vasir and Morinth are both Fifth years who have been friends since childhood apparently, and seeing as how they're both almost 60, like Wrex, that's a long time, regardless if you measure it by asari time or human time. And actually, I _am_ going to refer to them as if they were villains because it makes explaining much easier."

"Keelah, Ash, not again," Tali muttered just as Garrus sighed and said "Spirits." Apparently Ashley spent quite a bit of time on this topic.

Ignoring her friends completely, Ashley continued talking. "Vasir sits on top, obviously. We aren't really sure if Morinth is completely equal to her or just below. She could quite easily be equal, but spends too much time having sex either way that she's not of too much consequence. Vasir's obvious second in command, after Morinth, is Elnora N'Rali, an annoyingly crafty asari who always breaks the rules but never seems to get in trouble. The muscle of their group is this butt-ugly krogan named Weyrloc Guld. He's old enough to technically be a Seventh year, but stupid enough that he failed and had to repeat his sixth year.

"Donovan Udina is their bankroll, plain and simple. He's a filthy rich Sixth year who uses his father's money to pay for everything they do, and they do some crazy shit. Then there's this punk Fourth year kid named Kai Leng who thinks he's hot shit because he knows like, a dozen types of martial arts. He hates this girl named Miranda Lawson because until she came along, he was the youngest kid that Vasir let run with her. Now, Miranda is. She's a stuck up Third year who, for a human, is an incredibly strong biotic. After her, it gets a little fuzzy as to who is completely in with Vasir's crowd and the people who are just desperate wannabes."

Joker pretended to yawn and looked at his omni as if to check the time. "Holy crap, Williams, are you finally done?"

"That was one of the longest ones I've heard in a while. Are you sure you're finished?" Garrus said.

"I hate all of you," Ashley said grumpily, slouching down in her seat and crossing her arms like an angry child.

"If I didn't know any better I'd say with all that information you have that you're one of the wannabes," James teased.

That, apparently, was the wrong thing to say because Ashley sat up and slammed her hands on the table, causing Tali and Shepard to jump. "Shut the fuck up, Vega," she snarled, her eyes glittering with real anger.

"Woah, easy there, Ash," James said quickly, holding his hands up in the universal sign of surrender. "You know I was kidding."

Ashley stared hard at him for a few more seconds, everyone at the table holding their breaths so as not to agitate her and set her off again. Finally she just clenched her hands tightly, her knuckles turning white with force, then relaxed them and settle back into her chair, taking her stormy eyes off James and turning them to look at nothing. "Just don't joke about that shit, Vega."

The table was full of tense silence, no one wanted to break the quiet and say the wrong thing. After almost a full minute, the awkwardness growing to profound levels, Kaidan finally cleared his throat and addressed Shepard. "She shouldn't bother you, but just steer clear of Vasir and hopefully she'll leave you alone."

"Do be careful though, because if Morinth tells her that you're her newest conquest, Vasir might want to have fun and help her best friend ensnare you," Garrus cautioned.

"Honestly, if you stick with us, she shouldn't bother you too much. Especially with James around," Joker suggested.

"Why would being with James help?" Shepard asked.

"Well Morinth knows that she couldn't sway James to the dark side, and we think that she leaves the rest of us alone because of it. And Ashley-" he stopped when she shot him a cautioned look, "-Ashley is tough and Morinth knows it, so that's another level of protection."

"Hopefully she'll lose interest in you after a while," Tali said optimistically, trying to lighten the mood.

"Hopefully..." Shepard muttered weakly. Did crazy just follow her or was this a coincidence? Did Morinth notice her because she ate lunch with this group or would that have happened anyway? At the moment the jury was still out on that one, but she was leaning towards the probability that it would have happened anyway and that meeting this group of kids was a blessing. Besides Ashley's strange outburst and the whole situation with Morinth, they seemed like a pretty normal group of friends who loved to tease and rag on each but were also loyal to each other.

Before she could let the situation freak her out too much, the tone rang and signaled the end of lunch. Everyone at the table seemed grateful for it and cleaned up their food and trash.

"Hey, thanks for sitting with us, _Lola_. Hopefully we didn't scare you away," James said with a smile and a wink, genuinely glad that he had gotten to meet her.

"Yes, I apologize for some of my friends' rather neurotic tendencies," Garrus said. "And as James said, it was nice to meet you." The two of them grabbed their stuff and headed out of the mess to their next classes.

"If you could handle today, you've seen the worst of it," Joker laughed. And when she expected him to stand up and walk to his class, she was surprised to see his chair light up and move backwards. She must have been staring because he laughed at her and waved a hand in front of her face.

"Oh! I'm s-sorry, I didn't mean to stare," she said quickly, pretty sure she was blushing brightly.

"Hey, don't worry about, happens all the time. Just don't make any cripple jokes and we'll be even."

She looked at him with wide eyes because she never, ever would have made a joke at his expense like that. "I-!"

"Wow, you're easy to pull a fast one on, aren't you," he grinned. He'd actually been slightly uncomfortable with her staring at his chair, but knowing that she would never make fun of him for it put him at ease. He could tell she wasn't inclined towards meanness. "Anyways, it was nice to meet you, Shepard, hope you eat with us again."

"Me too, Shepard, I enjoyed meeting you," Tali said, and slipped by her to walk besides Joker. Wrex also rose from his seat and followed behind the two of them, giving her a slight head nod as he passed her. His size compared to the two smaller people was comical, but no one would ever mess with them while Wrex was around.

"Well, I guess we did end up being a bit weird, didn't we," Kaidan said with a slightly exasperated chuckle. "Like they said, I hope we didn't freak you out too much. You're welcome to sit with us whenever you want."

He and Ashley both stood up and Shepard thought they were going to walk away without Ashley saying anything to her, but as the pair passed the dark haired girl turned around and spoke to her. "Uh, hey, Shepard. Sorry I kinda wigged out there. Vasir is sort of a touchy subject. If you do sit with us again I won't flip shit again." Ashley gave her a small smile, which Shepard returned, and then turned and walked out with Kaidan.

Her and Kasumi stood there for a moment before her guide spoke up. "Well, that was certainly eventful, wasn't it? I feel safe in saying that that's not how most people's first days go, but some of us just get all the luck, huh? And that was just the first half of the day!"

Shepard sighed but figured that the day couldn't get any crazier than it already was. But, she took a deep breath and tried to shake off the strangeness that her lunch had been infused with and prepped herself to deal with the afternoon. Thankfully it was just more classes, so unless one of her teachers ended up jumping up on their desk and dancing or doing something equally insane, the last three classes of the day would be tamer. "Let's hope for a calmer half, yeah? And it looks like your favorite subject is next in line for me. Let's go to Basic Tech I."

Hopefully nothing would blow up or shock her.

* * *

_A/N - I am alive! I'm very sorry I was absent for so long, but I was swamped. Hopefully things in real life will slow down a tad, but we'll see. I didn't have this quite ready yesterday, but I figured a day late is better than waiting a whole nother week._

_Hope you enjoyed meeting some of the characters in this chapter, they were much fun to write. Thank you thank you being patient with me, I am again sorry it took me so long. Love you all!_


	25. I Think I'm Gonna Hurl

_A/N - It's what you've all been begging for..._

Chapter 25 - I Think I'm Gonna Hurl

Shepard's two classes after lunch were as boring as she could have hoped for, though compared to the events that had transpired during lunch, that wasn't too much of a challenge. Her tech class had actually been quite interesting and she'd actually gotten to do quite a bit of hands on tinkering. She hadn't quite known what was going on, but she looked on as other students worked and found it pretty interesting. She learned that class wasn't always like that, one student telling her that they mostly sat at their desks and learned about things from the teacher, but it had been fun getting to mess around with some of the equipment they had in the class.

Kasumi had met her outside of her room after that and taken her to Study of Inner Council Space. Nothing special had happened in that class like it had during Basic Tech, but the entirety of the subject matter fascinated Shepard, so the class hadn't been a dud. She had been a little bit confused since she'd been dropped right in the middle of the school year, but she was a quick learner and figured that she'd be able to catch up quickly.

Kasumi had also showed up at her ICS class and now the two of them were currently headed towards Shepard's last class of the day; Biotic Training.

More than any other class that had been on her schedule, this was the one that she had been dreading the most. On any given day she completely ignored her biotics if she could, and if she had to use them, she used them as little as possible. She wasn't afraid of them, per se, but in a way they intimidated her. On Earth, very few kids at her school had had biotics, and they, too, all kept theirs on the down low. Having biotic powers was not something that was common at all among humans, and quite a few people on Earth viewed Biotics as freaks and often called them 'mutants'. Because of these stigmas and prejudices, Shepard had just found it prudent to advertise her abilities as little as possible.

Now she was on an asari world where it was completely normal and natural to have biotics; it was something that was even embraced. The change was something that she was trying to get used to, but after living with the mentality that her powers were viewed as something negative and bad, that old concept was hard to overcome. She was also extremely nervous because she had never formally trained with her biotics before, and she was terrified that she would lose control or fail miserably and make a complete fool out of herself. Everything was culminating and making her quite the ball of nerves as she walked towards the gyms.

Kasumi was chatting amiable next to her as they walked along, maybe picking up on Shepard's nervousness and attempting to calm her by talking about meaningless things. Shepard was trying to focus on her words, because if she thought too much about what was coming up, she was afraid she was going to hurl.

Her guide was currently rambling on about some kid in her last class who had fallen asleep and when the teacher woke him up, he had jerked so bad that he tumbled out of his chair. "Hey, Kasumi?"

"Yes?" the smaller girl answered, gaving no indication that she was upset about being interrupted mid-narrative.

"How come Ashley kind of... freaked out on James when he teased her about wanting to hang out with Vasir's crowd?" Shepard asked.

After a few moments of silence, she looked to see if Kasumi had heard her question because it was unusual for the girl to be so quite after being asked something. She was very surprised, then, when she glanced beside her and saw that Kasumi had stopped walking and as standing in the middle of the hall a few feet back, students walking around her. Shepard quickly slowed and turned around to walk back to Kasumi's side. "Uh, you okay, Kasumi?"

The uncharacteristically quiet voice that answered her startled Shepard even further. "I know I'm pretty much the main source of gossip at this school, even if I never start false rumors and only spread true things. But... That's not something that I can tell you; it's not my place." Kasumi started walking again and Shepard followed. "If you ever become close enough friends with her, you can ask her then, but you'll have to hear it from her." Kasumi looked at Shepard for second before speaking again, "You could ask some random student and they'd have no problem telling you, but if you respect her, ask her yourself."

_Woah, that got real serious real fast..._ Shepard thought to herself, _I was not expecting anything this intense when I asked._ She filed the information away to think about on another day, since she obviously wasn't going to be getting any answers any time soon. "Oh. Um, okay, thanks for letting me know."

Kasumi nodded and was quiet for a few moments, and then quietly started talking again. Shepard was glad when her voice returned to her happy, upbeat volume and tempo, having been slightly weirded out by serious Kasumi.

They walked down a couple more hallways until Shepard recognized the hall they were in and realized that they had made it to the gyms. "Um, you wouldn't happen to have any biotics and get to be with me in this class as well, would you?" Shepard asked with a nervous smile.

Kasumi laughed and patted her shoulder. "Nope, sorry, Shep. But don't worry, you'll be fine. Everyone I know that is in the training classes love them. And I know this is your last class, but do you want me to meet you afterwards one more time before the day ends?"

Shepard thought about it before answering, not wanting to inconvenience her faithful guide but nervous about her mental state after she finished with her training. "Would you mind? I know you're probably tired of leading me around all day but I would appreciate it."

"Of course! And don't worry, I've had a great time today! I'm glad I got to be your guide," Kasumi said with a bright smile. "I'll meet you here after class and help you make it out of the building. Do you think you'll need me to show you around tomorrow as well or do you think you have it down?"

"Awesome, thanks. And I'm pretty sure I remember where all my classes are, so don't worry about it."

"Sounds like a plan!" Kasumi looked down at her omni-tool and then back up to Shepard. "Well, I gotta get to class. Have fun!"

Shepard must have had a pathetic look on her face because Kasumi laughed at her and patted her shoulder one more time encouragingly before she turned around and left Shepard to her doom... Alright, it probably wasn't going to be _that_ bad, but she wasn't looking forward to it regardless.

She took a deep breath and then turned around and looked at the doors leading into the gym. She probably looked extremely stupid standing in the middle of the hallway staring at a door, and the kids walking around her probably thought so as well, but she had to mentally prepare herself before she walked in. She was most likely going to have to stand in front of the class and introduce herself (again), and then all the kids would be curious about her and look at her a lot, which would mean they'd be watching her when she made a complete fool out of herself showcasing her less than stellar biotic abilities.

_Oh yeah, this is going to be awesome._

-.-.-.-.-

Liara's day would have been exactly like any other day, meaning she would have enjoyed her classes and learning new things, but it measured among some of her less than great days since all she could think about was her father leaving. There wasn't much else that she loved more than school, but this was one day that she wouldn't have minded skipping and getting to spend it elsewhere, namely, with her father.

It's not that she hadn't known the day was coming, Aethyta had been home for a while and another trip had been due soon, but that didn't mean Liara had to like it. She still paid attention in class and took notes, but her heart was most definitely _not_ in her school work and she wasn't very engaged in class. Ironically, what she considered being 'zoned out' was actually the most attentive that some kids ever got in their classes.

Lunch had been alright, though. She didn't have many friends, her shy personality not lending itself well to meeting new people, but those that she ate lunch with were good company and had distracted her for a little while from her father's departure. Sekat, a jumpy salarian she had befriended a few years ago, and her friend Nyxeris, an asari whom she'd been friends with most of her life, had done their best to liven her spirits and lighten her mood. She'd told them a few weeks ago when she'd found out that her father had to leave and they'd tried very hard to be encouraging. They were good friends and Liara was very thankful for them.

After lightening up a bit during lunch, her afternoon classes hadn't seemed as droll. She was still somewhat subdued, but she tried to focus on her class work and participating more in class. The class she had just left was one that was a particular favorite of hers, Ancient Civilizations II, so she'd gotten another boost to her mood. It was an advanced elective class that most students didn't take until they were Sixth years, and even though she was only a Fourth year, the subject was one that fascinated Liara, and she'd absorbed the material lightning quickly and proved that she could keep up with the work load and course curriculum.

At first the kids in her class had thought she'd been lost when she'd walked into the room, and it didn't help that she was also younger than any of her fellow Fourth years since she'd skipped a year. Quickly, though, she proved to them that she was smart enough to be there.

When Liara had been a First year, Benezia had appealed to the Academy board when she'd seen that Liara was not being challenged enough in her regular classes and had convinced them to allow her to advance a year. Most saw Liara's grades and agreed with her mother, and those that were skeptical were soon silenced when Liara aced standard tests that were designed for Third years when she was a First year. She probably could have jumped two years if she had wanted to, but Liara's father hadn't wanted her to advance too quickly and be isolated by her age. Benezia had reluctantly agreed with Aethyta and after half a year as a First year Liara had started taking Second year classes.

Ancient Civ II was usually taken alongside the Sixth year history class about the Protheans because it focused on the other civilizations that had existed besides the Protheans, but because of her schedule, Liara couldn't take the class on the Protheans until the second half of the year. It disappointed her, but she was just excited that she got to take it either way. Ever since she had read a book from her mother's library about the Protheans she had been fascinated by them. She was almost one hundred percent certain that the ancient race and their culture was what she wanted to study about at university, and she planned to one day go out and explore their ruins that were dotted across the galaxy. It was a point of contention between her and her mother, and as much as she hated doing anything that went against her mother's wishes, she was passionate enough about the Protheans that she was willing to do something that her mother disapproved of.

So as she was going to her last class of the day she was in a slightly better mood and not as melancholy. Biotics training was also something else that she enjoyed immensely, and she was quite happy that it was her final class since it gave her a chance to forget about how her day had gone up until that point and focus on her power and the energy running through her. Being distracted while practicing with biotics could be quite dangerous, so Liara used it as a chance to free her mind of any bothersome thoughts and for a short time and ignore any problems that she had going on.

She walked through the doors that led into the gym and made her way over to the rest of the students that were milling about on the padded floors waiting for training to start. She didn't really look at anybody as she walked in and quietly went to stand on the outskirts of the mass of kids. The biotic classes weren't year specific, so there were First years mixed in with Sixth years. Age didn't matter much when it came to biotics, power did, so within each class, students were subdivided into groups by their power level.

There were four power groups that kids were put in; group 1 was the kids with the lowest power levels and 4 was the highest. Some students used their classification to lord it over their peers, but for the most part kids weren't arrogant about it, especially because someone in group 1 could still beat someone in 3 or 4 if they had better control. Just because someone had a lot of power did not mean they necessarily knew how to control their power. Most of the time, trainers partnered kids up with others in their power group, but because control could often best power, the trainers would sometimes mix things up and put a high control, low power person with a low control, high power person.

Liara was actually one of the best in her entire class, something that often surprised a lot of people. Depending on the student, it was either a pleasant surprise or an unhappy surprise. The Academy was very diligent with its anti-bullying policy, but faculty and staff just aren't able to be everywhere at all times and people still got picked on. One of those, on occasion, was Liara.

Having two asari parents wasn't something that had ever seemed strange to her until she'd started going to school. Kids will say what their parents might not, and taunting Liara because she was a pureblood was something that she'd been forced to deal with most of her educational life. Adults, for the most part, aren't rude enough to insult purebloods to their faces, preferring to talk about them to their friends behind their backs, but children are often times much more vicious than

their parents. The taunting wasn't as bad as it would have been had she been raised on Thessia, but Sanves was still an asari world and as such, the prejudices were still prevalent.

When Liara first came home to her parents and told them of the children who had taunted her, they were outraged, as any parent would be, but they comforted her and taught her to be strong in the face of the torment. When she became old enough to utilize her biotics for the first time, she took most of her classmates and teachers by surprise with her ability, though they should have known better.

Not well known by those who are non-asari, those who are purebloods tend to have stronger biotics than most. The only explanation is that because both parents are asari, and therefore natural biotics themselves, the biotic potential in their daughter would be great than those with only one biotic parent. It is a theory that is often times criticized since some krogan and turians are biotics and, more recently, human as well. Regardless of the cause, it seems that purebloods do often times make stronger biotics. Also, daughters born to matriarchs have a tendency to be more powerful biotics, and that is less of a mystery than the pureblood theory. Matriarchs have lived long lives and have had centuries to develop their skills and abilities. In Liara, the two phenomenon were combined, seeing as how both her parents were asari _and_ matriarchs, and as a result she gained exceptionally powerful biotics.

So to many students her abilities come as a surprise when she displays them, but she never flaunts them nor uses them to lord over other students, so most of her peers developed a quiet respect for her. Those that picked on her became more weary and those that thought her weak reevaluated their opinions of her. It didn't gain or lose her friends, but fewer people bothered her about her parentage.

The kids were only standing around for a few minutes when the trainer came out and took the floor in front of them. There were multiple biotic training classes at the Normandy, there being too many kids to just have one section of it, and multiple trainers as well. The trainer for the class that Liara took was Trainer Shiala, who, coincidentally, also happened to be an acolyte of her mother's.

When Aethyta, and by extension Benezia, was exiled to Sanves, Benezia's support of her bondmate lost her some respect and standing in the community. Some of her followers abandoned her, those who had sworn loyalty to her broke away, not wanting their names and futures to be tainted by her name. However a great majority still believed and respected her, and decided to move with her when she relocated. Shiala was among those who remained faithful to Benezia and willingly followed her to Sanves.

Because of the loyalty and dedication that Shiala had shown and continued to show, she rose to a very prominent standing in the T'Soni household. She was almost considered part of their family, and as such had been a constant in Liara's life. Before the humans had even joined the galactic stage, therefore before the Normandy had been built, she had helped Aethyta teach and train some of the newer recruits of commandos on Sanves. When Liara became of an age to begin using her own biotics, she quit her job with Aethyta, with the matriarch's blessing, and became a full time mentor and teacher to Liara before she was in school. Under Shiala's tutelage, Liara was skilled beyond her years in regards to her biotics, and was leaps and bounds ahead of her peers.

When Liara started attending school, while still remaining her mentor, Shiala stepped back from full time mentoring of Liara and helped keep the entire T'Soni household running smoothly. She also taught any new acolytes that came seeking Benezia's wisdom. When the Normandy Academy opened, Benezia had been on the original board and she had offered two recommendations for the positions of biotic instructors that needed to be filled. One was Shiala, who gladly accepted and had worked there ever since. The other was an officer from law enforcement who worked under Aethyta and had been looking to move into a less demanding position. Detective Anaya then became Trainer Anaya when the job was offered to her.

There were a few other trainers that worked at the Academy as well, but Shiala was Liara's current biotic trainer. Biotic training was something that students with biotic potential had to take every year, not just once. Her first year Liara had been with Anaya, her second year she'd been with one of the other trainers, but this year she got to be with Shiala. Only those in administration who were asari really knew of Liara and Shiala's connection, but they did not see too much wrong with it. Liara and Shiala were not blood relatives and had been assured by Benezia and Shiala herself that no favoritism would be shown, and as long as it didn't interfere with the class, they saw no problem with allowing Shiala to train Liara. Liara had been very excited to get to work with her mentor again and training with Shiala was an excellent way for her to wrap up her days.

On a usual day the students would break up into their power groups and then pair up with their partners, trainers having assigned most kids a permanent partner for class times, and start working on their warm-ups. So when Shiala walked up, out of habit the students began breaking off into their groups. They halted, however, when she cleared her throat and spoke. "Before you break up into partners, I would like to make a short announcement." She motioned with her hand and a student walked up to her side. "Some of you may have already met her in your earlier classes, but we have a new student with us today. This is Shepard and she will be training with us."

Liara watched and listened as Shiala introduced the new girl. She had heard a few people in her classes mention the new student and had wondered a little bit herself about who she was, but hadn't given too much thought over to it. She hadn't been in any of Liara's classes until now, but if she was lower than a Fourth year that was understandable since Liara was in higher level classes. Being quite shy and keeping mostly to herself, Liara didn't interact with many students outside of group work in class or her small group of friends, namely Sekat and Nyxeris. She had never really gotten to know any humans and as such wasn't very accurately able to approximate the new girl's age. For all Liara knew she could be a Second year or a Sixth year.

Shiala wasn't extremely tall, though she was taller than the average asari, but the new girl, Shepard, was just as tall, which made her taller than Liara. Liara was standing sort of to the side, so she was not looking at her straight on, but from what she could see the human had blue-ish eyes and striking features. Her hair (which was something that fascinated Liara about humans) was a rich brown and hung long down her back. She stood nervously, though Liara couldn't blame her, but held her back upright, and although her hands were clenched behind her back, she looked the other students in the eyes confidently. Liara had never been a new student before, thankfully, but she figured she would look a hundred times more wrung out and nervous than this new girl was, and was impressed with her courage.

"She moved from Earth not too long ago, so please welcome her and help her adjust," Shiala finished her introduction. "You can all go into your groups now and start with your normal warm up routines," she dismissed.

Letting her eyes look over the new girl one more time, Liara turned away and went to find her partner. Liara was the most advanced in the class, but her partner was another asari who was quite strong as well, and they worked well together as partners. When they turned to face each other, Liara cleared her mind and turned all of her attention to herself and her partner, tuning out all of the other students, the new girl and her sadness over her father's departure. This was a chance to distract herself from everything around her and focus on the power running through her body.

She took a deep breath and held it for a moment before releasing it, and then she nodded to her partner and with a flash of blue and a rush of energy they began.

_A/N - ...and don't kill me because it's not how you wanted it to happen! Realism guys, it's what I aim for. Ain't no love at first sight up in this business. But hey, they met... sort of. More later, don't worry._

_And I read a story where someone's headcanon was that purebloods have stronger biotics and that daughters of matriarchs have stronger biotics, meaning that Liara is pretty freaking strong. I don't know who it was (sorry!), but if you guys know what story I'm talking about then they get the credit for the concept written about in here!_


	26. All in a Days Work

Chapter 26 - All in a Days Work

Shepard groaned painfully and stretched her arm out above her head to try and relieve some of the soreness that was burning in her shoulder. Her biotics class hadn't been as awful as she had first anticipated, but it had still been quite strenuous. Her body was aching from using muscles that she had previously never used before and she had a slight headache from using her amp so much after a period of such long dormancy.

She was incredibly thankful that all the students had been divided up by power groups because she would have been dust if she'd been up against some of the stronger kids. She was tired enough as it was and she'd been only doing the basic of the basics. There had been one asari in particular who had been extremely powerful and Shepard had been pushed over a couple of times because she'd been staring and hadn't blocked or braced properly during some exercises. Thankfully her own partner hadn't been all that strong either or Shepard would have been more than just sore.

When the stretch didn't do much besides make her arm hurt worse, she groaned again and limply dropped her arm to her side. Thinking about her class she wasn't sure quite how she felt about the whole thing. On one side, Shepard still didn't really trust her biotics or her ability with them since she hadn't ever used them much, which had shown when the trainer had asked them to do seemingly simple drills that she had no idea how to do. On the other hand, she'd learned more about her biotics in just this first class than she had ever really learned in basically her entire life. This made her a bit more optimistic about the training and gave her hope that maybe she'd eventually be able to feel more confident and comfortable with her power and that she'd be able to use it without fear of hurting herself or someone else.

The trainer, Shiala, had been quite patient with her as well, something she was very grateful for. If someone had been yelling at her or judging her because of her lack of ability, Shepard was sure that she would have never been able to understand anything. Shiala had been strict and firm, but she had never made Shepard feel like she was an idiot for not understanding something or weak for not being able to perform simple exercises.

While in class, Shepard had remembered that Principal Tevos had told her to ask her biotic instructor about information regarding the Academy's skyball team, and Shepard made a mental note to ask Shiala about it tomorrow. She thought about approaching her after class had ended, but she didn't want Kasumi to have to wait for her to talk since the girl said she'd meet her afterwards and Shepard didn't want to be inconsiderate. She was very appreciative for everything Kasumi had done for her that day and didn't want to mess up her routine anymore than she already had. _And speak of the devil..._

"Hey, Shep! How was biotics? You looked seriously wiped. I hope it wasn't too hard!" Kasumi chirped as she came walking down the hallway.

Shepard smiled at the girl and laughed lightly. "Ah, it wasn't as bad as I thought, but I'm still crazy tired and sore."

"Well, it was your first day, and didn't you say that you never really use your biotics? You'll be sore for a little while, but like any form of exercise, your muscles will get used to the routine and you won't tire out as quickly."

"How do you know so much about biotics if you don't have any?" Shepard asked as they joined up and walked away from the gyms.

"It's not like it's that hard to figure out, silly. Sure, I don't have them, but I know a bunch of people that do and they always complain about aching body parts whenever they have had to try something new in training. Your body reacts like it would to any sort of work out, but in your case you guys are throwing around blue wisps of death," she joked.

Shepard rolled her eyes, "'Blue wisps of death'? Very original, Kasumi. But yeah, that makes sense. So I get more of this soreness to look forward too. Joy," Shepard said dryly.

"Don' be a baby." Kasumi reached over and lightly punched her shoulder, laughing when Shepard winced and rubbed her sore arm. "Were Wrex or Kaidan in your class? They're both biotics as well."

"Nope, neither of them where," Shepard said. "Wait, _Wrex_ is a biotic? I didn't know krogans could have biotics."

"They can. It's very, very rare, but it can happen. In theory, anyone from any race could have biotics. Asari are the only ones who are all born with them naturally, but other species all have a chance of gaining biotic potential. Think about it, how did you get your powers?"

"There was an eezo factory that exploded when my mom was pregnant with me and I guess the radiation affected me," Shepard explained.

"Exactly; exposure to element zero. Humans aren't the only ones that can be affected by its radiation. The same thing that happened to you could have happened to anyone from any species. Obviously not all would be able to handle it and could die, like say if a quarian was exposed to too much eezo, but you get my drift. And just like it's rare for the krogan, it's also rare for turians, so you won't find many turian biotics, but there are a few."

"Huh, I'd never thought about it I guess," Shepard admitted, then thought about the really strong asari in her class. "You said asari are the only naturally born biotics. Does that make them stronger than all of us or can non-asari be as strong?"

"I'm not entirely sure on that, actually. I mean, in general from what I've seen yes, it makes them stronger than most, but that's not to say that there aren't humans or krogan or turians who could go toe to toe with an asari and win," Kasumi said. "Granted, they'd have to be very powerful and very well trained, but I guess somewhere out there is someone who could beat an asari. That's probably not very common though. Why do you ask?"

"No reason, I just noticed that all of the students in the top group were asari, and there was one in particular who seemed to be the strongest out of everyone in the class," Shepard explained.

"Was it Vasir? She is pretty strong."

"The asari Ashley talked about at lunch? Um, I don't think so. I caught a glimpse of her in the mess when everyone was talking about her and the asari in my class didn't look like her."

"Hmm, maybe I know her, what did she look like?"

"Uh, I guess... blue?" Shepard said with a weak smile.

Kasumi threw her head back and laughed at that. "Ohh gosh, Shep, that was funny. 'Blue'. I thank you for your amazing powers of observation," she said, still laughing.

Shepard blushed. "What? I was sort of staring at her crazy powers and not her," she defended herself. "Um, but I guess she was a _light_ blue, and she had uh, eyebrows? Which I thought was kinda weird because I thought asari didn't have hair."

"I'm pretty sure you're talking about Liara T'Soni. And you're right, they don't have hair, or," Kasumi wiggled her eyebrows at Shepard, "eyebrows, but asari tattoos can be anything. I think her mom has them and so she probably copied her mom's. It's not uncommon, especially at our age, or, I guess, their age, since they are like fifty years older than us, for asari children to imitate their mothers until they become older when they, if they choose to, pick their own tattoos that are more their own style."

"Huh. That's pretty cool. So this Liara is the really strong asari I saw in class?"

"From what you've said, yeah, I think so. I know she's really powerful, but she's also really shy and quiet. I've only ever spoken to her maybe one or two times."

"Good to know, I guess. Thanks for telling me all that stuff about biotics as well, I guess at this point everything that I can learn will help me understand my own better."

"It is pretty neat stuff. And, now that you know, you can ask Kaidan or Wrex for some pointers if you ever need help."

"Thanks, but I feel like Wrex could accidentally throw me across a room if he just coughed wrong, let alone tossed some 'blue wisps of death' at me," Shepard joked, nudging Kasumi in the shoulder.

"Okay, okay, it was a stupid name for it," Kasumi laughed, pushing Shepard off her. "But hey, it's what they look like."

"Yeah, whatever," Shepard said. During their conversation they'd made it all the way back to the main entrance of the school and were standing in the big atrium with students streaming by them leaving school. "Well, I made it through the day."

"You did indeed, congratulations," Kasumi said, turning to face her with a smile.

"It was in no small part due to you, Kasumi. Thank you so much for helping me today, it would have been a hundred times worse if you hadn't of been here. Thank you," Shepard said, meaning everything. Obviously Kasumi understood how much she meant it because before she knew it the smaller girl had wrapped her in a big hug. She was surprised at first but then smiled softly and returned the show of affection.

Kasumi pulled back after a moment and smiled brightly at Shepard. "Hey, I had a great time today too, it was my pleasure to help you. If you ever have any questions or need help finding anything, I'm your girl. Here," she reached out and grabbed Shepard's wrist that had her omni-tool on it and opened it up, "let me give you my information so you can call or message me if you need something." She took a few moments to enter some things in and then nodded with satisfaction and let go of Shepard's wrist. "You're pretty awesome too, Shep. I'm very glad I got to meet you and show you around," she finished with a smile.

Shepard didn't feel the urge to cry, but she was touched. It was her first day and she hadn't expected to have such a great time or to have met such nice people. But already she had made, she hoped, a couple of friends with the people she'd met at lunch and had actually enjoyed her classes. She'd never had a 'first day' of school since she'd never moved after kindergarten, but she guessed that she'd gotten very lucky because she had had an excellent start to the Normandy Academy.

"Thanks again, Kasumi," she said with a smile. "So, I guess I'll see you tomorrow then?"

"Bright and early, Shep. Later!" Kasumi waved and walked back into the school. She probably had to go see Tevos for something since she did work in the offices. Shepard turned and walked out of the school with all of the other students, receiving a few nods from some of the kids in her classes, and went to where she had parked her skycar. Other students were taking off or waiting for parents to come get them.

There were a few large transportation skycars that kids were filing into that she figured were the equivalent to school buses back on Earth. She was thrown off because they hadn't been yellow, but then chuckled to herself when she remembered that she was on an asari world. Intuitively she always remembered she was on an alien planet, but there were some times when she just had brain lapses and she thought something in the school was going to be like it was on Earth, and then she'd be surprised when it was totally different.

She got into her skycar (it was still a thrill to think of it as _hers_) and observed the activity around the school for a little while more before she turned the car on and took off. She was excited to see McKenzie and to hear about how the younger girl's day had gone. She also realized that she wanted to talk about her day with someone too, and looked forward to getting to talk to her aunt about all the things that had gone on. The skycar made it into the air and she turned and headed back home.

It was a short drive thankfully, and she made it back pretty quickly. She saw her aunt's skycar and knew that she was home already and that she had picked her sister up already. And that was even more evident because as soon as she stepped into the house, McKenzie tackled her.

"Sissy!" She leaped at her sister and would have probably been dropped if Shepard hadn't been quick enough to drop her bag and catch her.

"Woah! Hey there, Kenzie-bear, how are you?" Shepard asked, gripping McKenzie tighter so she wouldn't fall.

Evidently her sister was great because she didn't even register the question before she launched into how her day had gone. "It was awesome! Kids were aliens, like the vid show! And so were teachers! And I played with them! It was so fun!" The girl was talking a mile a minute and Shepard just laughed at her sister's enthusiasm. Kenzie didn't know a stranger, and she was sure that all of the teachers at the school had had their hands full today. Not that her sister would have misbehaved, but she was probably bouncing off the walls with excitement and probably hadn't paid attention to much besides her 'cool new alien classmates'.

"Well that's great, Kenz! How about we go sit down and you can tell me all about it."

"Okay!" she agreed, and then dropped out of Shepard's arms and dashed into the kitchen. It seemed that a full day at school hadn't done much to dull her energy level at all. Shepard put her bag on the stairs and followed more slowly, laughing as she walked in and saw her sister eagerly bouncing in her seat excited to talk about her day.

"Alright, Kenz, lay it on me," Shepard said, and then she sat back and let the flood gates open.

-.-.-.-.-

McKenzie had talked for a full thirty minutes, which wouldn't have been very long for a normal conversation with an adult, but with a child, that was a long talk. She had plenty to say though, and hadn't really repeated much information like kids often tend to do. Granted, almost everything was prefaced by or ended with, 'It was awesome!', but McKenzie still talked about a wide range of things.

It seemed that, like herself, McKenzie had made a sort of instant friend at school. She'd hit it off with an asari named Falere and a lot of the stories Kenzie told involved this friend. Shepard was glad that her sister had made friends with kids so easily, not that she'd had any doubts that she would. McKenzie was the epitome of a social butterfly and quite easy to like. Her smile was contagious and her enthusiasm towards everything was fun to witness. She was a genuinely happy little girl and it took a lot to upset her, so she stayed happy almost all of the time. And, it didn't hurt that she was beyond adorable.

Eventually she ran out of things to talk about and then she started pulling things out of her backpack that she had made or found that day. There were a couple of pictures with her and some of her new classmates, a little box made out of wooden sticks, and a stone she had picked up during recess. Shepard scanned the pictures of Kenzie's drawings and found a couple of blank data pads the she could put them on so that they could hang the originals on the fridge and put the copies in her room.

Shepard helped her sister carry everything upstairs and they arranged everything to McKenzie's liking. After hanging out with her sister for a little while longer, she went and found her aunt so she could talk about her day. Not that she didn't enjoy talking with her sister, but a six year old wouldn't be able to provide the engaging conversation she wanted or have the attention span to listen.

Her aunt was in the office but smiled brightly and put down what she was working on as soon as she saw her niece walk in. "And she returns. I heard you come in and was going to come talk to you but then I heard that Kenzie had wrangled you first," she chuckled. "I figured I'd let her have you first. It's quite the adventure she had at school today, wasn't it? I got all the tales in the car on the way home," Karin laughed.

"Yeah, she had quite a day," Shepard agreed. "I'm glad she had so much fun and that she met so many kids. I was really worried about how this move would affect her and seeing her happy lessens the guilt I have about completely upending her life to move here," she admitted quietly.

Karin got up and put an arm around her niece. "You don't have to feel guilty, honey. You did what you thought was best for you and your sister, never doubt that. Here, let's go to the living room, it'll be more comfortable to talk there." Karin kept her arm around Sydney and they walked to the couch and sat down. "And for what it's worth, I think that given the situation you were in, you made the best decision that you could," she reassured.

Shepard sighed but nodded. "I guess. It'll just take me a while to firmly believe that she's better off here than back there." She grew quiet for a few moments but then shook her head. "Sorry, I didn't mean to be a downer. On a more positive note, I actually had a great first day of school as well."

"That's wonderful! Tell me all about it. What classes do you have and who are your teachers? I can give you some insider tips about them," Karin winked in an over-exaggerated, conspiratorial manner and smiled.

Shepard laughed at her aunt and started at the beginning of the day. "Well, Principal Tevos assigned a student to help show me around today, which was a _huge_ help, so I met her first in Tevos' office."

"Who was it?"

"A girl named Kasumi Goto. Do you know her?"

"Oh, Kasumi," Karin said with a laugh. "I can tell already that your day was interesting. Carry on!"

* * *

_A/N - I'm alive. School is crazy. Life is crazy. Thank you thank you to all of you who are still with this :) I love you so much and the continued feedback is awesome!_

_I'd probably be lying if I said I'd be able to get back to my once a week updates though. Maybe later in the year, but at the point I'm at now I don't think it's realistic. But: I WILL KEEP WITH THIS STORY! Don't doubt that, it just won't be as frequently updated as it was in the summer._

_Shorter chapter, but I wanted to wrap up her day concisely before launching into the next part of the story (there may be one more chapter in this 'first day' set though). I know her first day was drawn out over a bunch of chapters (and they won't all be like that) but there was just a ton of stuff that I wanted to show you guys :) Thanks for staying awesome!_


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